A strong and strange smell led multiple investigators to find at least 115 decaying bodies at a funeral home in rural Colorado. This funeral home has promised “green” burials, officials said on Friday.
Randy Keller, the Fremont County coroner said it could take up to months to identify the bodies, and only DNA, fingerprints, and dental records could be used to do that since they were unrecognizable.
State and federal agencies including the FBI are helping the governor Jared Polis of Colorado on Thursday that issued a verbal disaster declaration for Fremont County to provide more resources in the investigation into the remains found at the ‘Return to Nature Funeral Home’ in Penrose Colorado, about 105 miles south of Denver.
According to a letter from state regulators suspending the funeral’s home license, the owner Jon Hallford spoke to a funeral home regulator on Wednesday and “acknowledged that he has a ‘problem’ at the property,” and “claimed that he practices taxidermy.” The letter, dated Thursday, also said that Mr.Hallford, “attempted to conceal the improper storage of human remains” on the property. Mr. Hallford could not be reached at all lately and the funeral home’s voicemail was full.
According Allen Cooper, the Fremont County sheriff said that no one had been arrested or charged. He said that the owner of the funeral home had been cooperating. State records indicate that the funeral’s home’s license was issued back in 2017. Mr. Keller said that the sheriff’s office had tried to contact him earlier to report an odor coming from the funeral home. Later then investigators executed a search warrant at the property on Wednesday.
The purpose of the ‘Return to Nature’ Funeral home was to offer burials without chemicals or concrete vaults, according to its website. It was said that bodies could be buried in biodegradable caskets, baskets, shrouds, or nothing at all. The whole situation is just strange, and others might believe it was abandoned.
