‘Horrific’: 189 bodies found and removed from Colorado ‘green’ funeral home

Authorities find more bodies after initial report of 115 two weeks ago, when owners were evicted and police investigated foul odor

The remains of at least 189 decaying bodies were found and removed from a Colorado funeral home, up from about 115 reported when the bodies were discovered two weeks ago, officials said Tuesday.

The remains were found by authorities responding to a report of a foul odor at the Return to Nature funeral home inside a decrepit building in the small town of Penrose, Colorado.

Efforts to identify the remains began last week with help from an FBI team that gets deployed to mass casualty events like airline crashes. Fremont sheriff Allen Cooper described the scene as “horrific”.

i_simp_4_tedcruz,

Nobody wants to talk about the fact that this is very clearly a former Pizza Hut?

chili1553,

F

weirdwallace75,

A funeral home contains dead bodies? THE HORROR!

hoch,

Well they’re normally not rotting

SatansMaggotyCumFart,

Typically the front doesn’t fall off.

Wilibus,

When does the US get labelled as third world hellhole it actually is?

Absolutely fucking disgusting.

DarkGamer,
DarkGamer avatar

You should live in the third world a while and see if you still feel that way.

ickplant,
@ickplant@lemmy.world avatar

It’s one funeral home. The US certainly has its problem, but you should relax a bit.

Wilibus,

This is the only nursing home with piles of corpses isn’t quite the argument in favour of your country not being a shit hole you think it is.

Just ignore the rampant school shootings, the racially motivated violence of police against citizens not breaking any laws and the wannabe autocratic dictator who incited a mob to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power that your justice system seems terrified of holding accountable.

If we ignore all of these “just one thing” issues then everything is fine.

Gargantu8,

Go volunteer for campaigns you care about instead of complaining online. Much more productive.

Wilibus,

I generally volunteer during the weekend while I am not working.

You are absolutely correct about the productivity. Alas, the point of my post wasn’t to be productive.

Gargantu8,

Fair enough! Lol many of the hours of my life aren’t aimed at being productive!

WarmSoda,

I do too. I’m up to a thousand now.

jarfil,

nursing home with piles of corpses

Funeral home. People tend to come already dead in there.

elscallr,
@elscallr@lemmy.world avatar

“I’m not dead!”

“'Ere! He says he’s not dead!”

jarfil,

“Well now he’s dead, you whacked him on the head”

YeetPics,
@YeetPics@mander.xyz avatar

Nursing home ≠ funeral home

Is your mind a shithole or is this just a semantics mistake?

Wilibus,

Legitimate error on my part. Congrats on living in the greatest country in the world.

YeetPics,
@YeetPics@mander.xyz avatar

Go touch grass.

Texas_Hangover,

Don’t you get sick of yourself?

Wilibus,

Now why I would I go and do something like that?

PhlubbaDubba,

That would require the US to leave NATO and become Switzerland tier neutral.

Oh, you meant the racist way people who’ve never been to the “third world” say “third world.”

BeMoreCareful,

Iean unaligned with allied or axis powers?

PhlubbaDubba,

Allied or Soviet bloc powers

h3mlocke,

Lmfao, the rage!

Stuka,

Lol what a moron.

Wilibus,

The dude is so dumb he doesn’t even know that Donald Trump made America great again.

Potatos_are_not_friends,

Wtf is this thread. There’s a comment chain going wild about how to bury your own body.

Is there a Lemmy bestOf?

SeedyOne,

You’re seeing that in-between moment when a wildly ignorant comment is upvoted to the top quickly but comes down slowly. It’s still hot, but the OP has been downvotes far below most corrective comments.

GeneralEmergency,

Lemmites thinking anyone who provides a service is a parasitic bourgeois bastard that needs guillotining.

USSEthernet,

As with any service, everything can be “reasonably” priced. Things that people need every day have become predatory or straight price gouging. Funeral homes are one of those. If people want to have their naked bodies burned or put into the ground, they should be able to.

satans_crackpipe,

It’s a good chain. I want to be tossed in the ocean (when I’m dead).

jarfil,

When you have a loved one pass away… and you get forced to pony up $10k for a basic service, cremation in a nice casket, and a pretty expensive “basic” urn for the ashes, because the funeral home won’t let you use anything cheaper like a pine box or a shroud, with the only choice being between an “eco gas” cremation in your own city vs. a $2k cheaper “non eco” one a city over… you’ll understand why people call funeral homes parasites and look for alternatives.

afraid_of_zombies,

You can use a pinewood casket.

jarfil,

Here in Spain, you “are legally allowed to use a pinewood casket or just a shroud”… at the same time as “only a funeral home is allowed to perform a cremation or burial”… and they all refuse to do businesses with you unless you also pay for a much pricier casket and some extra services.

Nice tiny loophole, ain’t it?

afraid_of_zombies,

Hmm ok so what do Roma, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus do?

jarfil,

Protest. There’s a few faith-specific funeral homes, even some that offer free burials for immigrants without resources, but otherwise just protest.

afraid_of_zombies,

Interesting.

Crashumbc,

Refuse to accept the body. The local government will have to take care of it.

jarfil, (edited )

Checked on that, it’s a 2K€ minimum community service, they take the body, cremate, then dump the ashes into a common pit, no extras. Next of kin are still supposed to pay the 2K€ “when their economy improves” (basically if you’re earning anything above minimum wage, then you’re on the hook).

Also if your loved one dies at home, “refusing the body” is not really an option, you want the body out ASAP before it stinks the whole place (had my mom for a day, took a couple weeks to get rid of the smell).

afraid_of_zombies,

That is why every funeral home has those big garage doors. If you don’t see it from the street just look in the back. Dialysis bodies smell the worst. Imagine rotting meat soaked in urine.

I love this comment thread. People advocating for the general public being responsible for this. Oh yes please have people randomly disappear from society buried uphill from water supplies. Screw thousands of years of civilization dealing with this problem.

jarfil,

Imagine rotting meat soaked in urine

Hákarl

dammitBobby,

Just put me in a Folgers can. Just because we’re bereaved doesn’t make us saps!

Cethin,

If they don’t allow that, then they’re descriminating against all of us Dudists!

EssentialCoffee,

I just had to do this. It was less than $4K for cremation, two services with funeral home staff (multi-hour, including on location at the church), and all of the guest books/cards/etc, plus announcements. I’d have to look at my paperwork for the exact amount.

They even told us to bring our own urn because it would be cheaper than anything the funeral home could provide, so we did.

jarfil, (edited )

I guess different countries, but that sounds more reasonable. We had to take a flash loan, when they saw my father was about the same age, they tried to upsell him to a $6K funeral insurance plan… imagine that: “so we see your wife just died, have you thought about dying yourself? Get a 40% rebate now!”

MisterHavoc,

In theory… Let’s say I bury my loved one far away from the city. Couple months later some hiker finds an arm that an animal pulled out. Police gets involved. They blame it on the cartels… At what point do I say anything, and if I do, how much trouble am I in?

sebinspace,

“Asking for a friend”

MisterHavoc,

Of course. It goes without saying.

Telodzrum,

It depends on your jurisdiction, it’s a felony in some places.

Chickenstalker,

Funeral homes are parasites. Families should prepare and bury their own, unembalmed with no casket. A dead body is the most biodegradable matter in nature. Why pump it full of formalin and doll it up like a tart? Mourn the life of the dead, not their physical body.

afraid_of_zombies,

Embalming is optional and always has been. You can purchase biodegradable caskets and again that was always been an option. Open caskets are by family request and often aren’t even an option.

I also saw Adam Ruins everything.

drolex,

Preparing and burying your own is a recipe for cholera outbreak

deus,

Easy fix: don’t bury people, just leave the bodies out in the open so scavengers can do their job.

Dkarma,

deleted_by_moderator

    •
    Touching_Grass,

    Is your idiot brain getting fucked by stupid

    Dkarma,

    I can’t hear you over the sound of ur mom

    Touching_Grass,

    …clevelandclinic.org/sudden-hearing-loss-dont-ign…

    Jaytreeman,

    Lost Redditor?
    The fediverse is largely positive. Let's keep it that way

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s been practiced by Tibetans and Mongols for centuries.

    JJROKCZ,

    Tibetans and mongols don’t invest the same toxic chemicals and plastics Americans do, they also don’t need to bury a thousand people a day like America does

    krellor,

    But with what population density? I'm imagining NYC or LA county looking very different, lol.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Probably not good for New York, but it doesn’t spread disease where it’s practiced, which was my point.

    Deceptichum,
    Deceptichum avatar

    NY could probably get away with dumping them down the sewers for the giant rats to eat.

    Touching_Grass,

    Why don’t we eat them or throw them in those huge car crushers and make a YouTube channel of it.

    krellor,

    That's fair. Personally, I'm all for donate organs to save people -> body to science -> (cremation of remains ashes to family OR industrial/forest compost). It scales and solves problems.

    SoylentBlake,

    Bodies for science usually ends up with the military buying the corpse and then testing out ordinance.

    I’m not kidding.

    krellor,

    You can specify the organization to receive your body, though some have prescreening.

    Generally speaking, bodies donated to science don't end up being tested with ordinance. The consent waiver limits how the body can be used and is generally narrowed to medical research. One example where this didn't happen was here and the company founder was tried for fraud.

    My suggestion for people is to find an organization that directly accepts donated bodies and go through their prescreening to bypass the body broker business.

    drolex,

    GOOD point

    Bgugi,

    Sky burial!

    Wrench,

    I unironically would love a sky burial. Vultures can digest anything. Chop me up, drive me out to the mountains and let the vultures shit me out. Seems better than the alternatives.

    Socsa,

    Great, now we have prions

    8BitRoadTrip,

    braaaaaiiiinnnzzzzzzz 🧟‍♂️

    jarfil,

    We already have microplastics coming down with the rain, what’s a few prions on top of that.

    mbp,
    @mbp@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    Idk why this killed me

    echodot,

    Yeah prions do that

    snail,

    scavengers would die of toxicity from NSAIDs, chemo drugs, and whatever else modern humans load up on before their death. This already happened in places known for sky burials

    roguetrick,

    Cholera more requires the living and untreated water. Palestine is a recipe for a cholera outbreak. You'd need some spread among the living before the corpses become a real vector.

    E coli maybe, but once again, only with untreated water.

    For the most part, corpses don't really spread a lot of disease other than whatever killed them.

    aniki,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Dkarma,

    This is the answer. It’s a pollution issue as much as a mortician issue.

    Mirshe,

    Or just plain old burying a person too shallow. Not a huge problem now, but it’ll be a problem when coyotes and vultures and other scavengers dig the corpse up.

    CascadianGiraffe,

    FR tho

    It’s somehow three times the work to bury them a second time. Plus you always get stuck fixing during the day.

    Remember kids, if you think you dug the hole deep enough, you didn’t.

    afraid_of_zombies,

    There is this clothing donation dumpster thing by my work that has a couch infront of it. It’s pretty clear to me what happened. Someone brought it, noticed the sign that says no furniture donations, and decided that it wasn’t his problem.

    It would be pretty much like that. Find random bodies everywhere.

    echodot,

    This couch looks comfy, let’s put grandad there. No one will notice, put some sunglasses on him.

    AlexisFR,
    @AlexisFR@jlai.lu avatar

    Are you out of your mind?

    papertowels, (edited )

    What happens if you don’t own land?

    Wait…You… You are saying to only bury your dead on your own land, right?

    Padme_meme.jpg

    sheogorath,

    If you don’t own land then you’re not a real citizen /s

    stolid_agnostic,

    It turns out that humans and their pets are horrible for the environment because we’re just filled with chemicals from medication, cosmetics, and food. We’re not living our natural best anymore.

    echodot,

    It’s actually illegal in most countries to bury a dead body without alerting your authorities and usually there are restrictions on where you can do it.

    You can of course just cremate the body, you don’t have to go with a cemetery.

    FraidyBear,

    It’s illegal almost everywhere in the US to have a “natural” burial. There are laws on containers, treatment, and where the deceased can be buried. Dead bodies, while very biodegradable are also toxic and tend to get dug up and parts drug around by animals, up rooted by trees, or dug up during construction after the property is bought out. I do agree that funeral homes are soulless vultures who fleece people in mourning though, the last “fuck you” from capitalism.

    at_an_angle,

    I’ve looked it up years ago. In my state, you don’t need embalmed, a vault, or anything really. You can throw a fresh body into the ground in a handmade pine box if you want.

    I think the only restriction is an approved site for burial.

    afraid_of_zombies,

    Little of this is true. You can buy a wood casket, embalming is optional. Where you bury yes is regulated but maybe the rest of us don’t want to drink corpse water.

    Blueberrydreamer,

    All water is corpse water, has been for billions of years.

    afraid_of_zombies,

    Are you being pedantic or do you not know simple understanding that drinking water with dead bodies rotting in it is a bad idea?

    Mobiuthuselah,

    Are you sure natural burial is illegal?

    afraid_of_zombies,

    They are wrong. One of my family members works in the industry. Wood biodegradable caskets are perfectly legal in all states.

    JJROKCZ,

    I’m not the guy that you’re responding too but I’ll add my anecdote.

    There was a somewhat off his rocker dude in my hometown that lived with his mom, she died, he didn’t notify anyone, buried her on his land (owned 15-20 acres or so, nothing large) and didn’t tell anyone. A few months go by and she obviously misses doctor appointments, church, etc so police check in. Then the guy says “oh yeah she died, I buried her, no biggie”. Turns out he violated a few laws doing this so he got some light jail time, she got exhumed, investigated to make sure she wasn’t murdered, then buried in a graveyard.

    I lived fairly close to all this being in the same county and learned that in Illinois at least, you can’t just bury your dead, you have to go through some processes.

    Mobiuthuselah,

    That’s right, there’s is a process. You can’t just bury people without reporting the death and going through some sort of process. That’s a good bit different from an actual natural burial even if at face value he did bury her naturally lol. That’s wild. I’ve heard of that happening in my region in the southern Appalachians too.

    SheDiceToday,

    I’ll give you one better. I once found a dude who had been chucked in a garbage pile by his son. This was out in the deep country, so lots of land and most people had a burn pile or area they chucked garbage. It was pretty cold, so the body didn’t decompose very much, but there he was, laying on the ground with trash bags and various household debris piled up on top of him. The son had wrapped him with some fitted sheets. It was wild.

    FraidyBear,

    Yes and no, it’s not a black and white issue. I didn’t really want to go all in on the topic because it’s Googleable. My grandpa recently passed and it’s very expensive, we were looking for alternatives. On a federal level natural burial is allowed. The states take matters into their own hands. Some require burial vaults, some require embalming, some require that natural burials only happen in very specific places, and some require a mix of those things. It’s doable but if they can squeeze money out of you through laws or extreme inconvenience, they will. It’s not as easy and just picking a spot and burying a loved one, in a lot of cases.

    Mobiuthuselah,

    First of all, sorry to hear what you’re going through.

    In regards to natural burial, my understanding is that it’s more legal than not, just that there’s regulations depending on where you live. It’s very rare that embalming is required by law. Burial vaults are typically required when embalming fluids are used to slow the spread of the fluids to waterways. Neither of these are considered part of a natural burial.

    There’s a lot smoke and mirrors in the funeral industry that has led to wide misconceptions and outright misinformation. I asked if you were sure because the points you made are generally what a traditional burial funeral home would tell a client to steer them more towards their products. It’s awful that it’s become common for funeral homes to prey on those that are grieving. Absolutely despicable.

    I hope y’all find a way that honors your grandpa without causing additional stress.

    RaincoatsGeorge,

    What constitutes a natural burial? At a cursory glance there are only about 5 states that don’t permit home burials and many of those just say it has to be in a cemetery, but you can apply for a family cemetery on your property and it’s completely legal.

    In Virginia and West Virginia at least there are no requirements whatsoever that you use a casket or bury them to any specific depth. I’d suspect that if you were disrespecting grandma and threw her in the garbage you would be breaking desecration of remains laws but doing a legitimate burial at home is completely fine.

    I can only speak to the laws of my state and those around me, and I suppose local municipalities might have differing laws, but it’s pretty open ended. You do not need a funeral home involved at all and frankly given how expensive these things are I totally support families that go that route.

    rckclmbr, (edited )

    I wish I could have a sky burial but I’m pretty sure theres nowhere in the US that could happen. And it would freak my wife out. I think the best option is aquamation (or hopefully recomposting since it was just legalized in california), since I can’t have a sky burial

    RaincoatsGeorge,

    I’ve said the same thing for years. One day my wishes will be honored!

    pg_sax_i_frage,

    Well, you coild probably arrange for the soil/compost, resulting from that teconposting, to be used to grow some grain (or other native plants that might appeal to the local wildlife) , and then those could be fed to some birds 🐦 🐦 🐦, perhaps on a mountaintop 🌄, even. (i remember a story told at, I think this wasduring kne session at the ‘body composting conference’, about some peo friend and family who were left soil depositing some of it some quite remote places.) You could make a wole ceremony out of it, if that was desired.

    It’s a few extra steps, but maybe somewhat of a similar result, in a certain sense. And then the extra steps could give extra time for the grieving orocess, and link with the whole cycles of life thing, you know.

    Anyway, that’s just an idea. Hope you, and everyone, can find one that works for you, and find a way to have itgise wishes fulfilled later on. The option thts offered by recompose is cool, more options can certainly be good.

    RaincoatsGeorge,

    Fun fact. It’s completely legal and ok to take possession of your loved one, provided you are their legal next of kin, and you can effectively bury them yourselves. Find someone on Craigslist that can throw together a pine box and rent out an excavator for a weekend and you can bury grandma for a fraction of the cost.

    I have loaded a corpse into the bed of a pickup truck. We have sat bodies upright in the back of a suburban. All of this is completely legal so long as you don’t cross state lines and even then you just need a permit.

    Each state handles it differently but largely this is the same wherever you go.

    Spend the 5k to 10k on a nice trip to Vegas, Grammy would have wanted it that way.

    zerofk,

    “Everywhere you go” inside this one count you’re talking about. Maybe.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Is it legal to have a Viking funeral where you’re set adrift in a longboat and someone fires a flaming arrow at it and it goes down on fire? Asking for a friend.

    SoylentBlake,

    No. Not an any state when I looked into it a decade ago

    That being said, sometimes it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission, if you get me.

    RaincoatsGeorge,

    That’s actually a great question and I don’t know the answer. It might not be permitted because of concerns about disposing of remains and whatnot but again each state is different with their laws.

    Personally I want a sky burial but I don’t think I’d be able to sell that to my family.

    collegefurtrader,

    My dad said he wants this. I can’t be sure if he’s serious, but I am.

    Talaraine,
    Talaraine avatar

    Your friend is not the first to ask this xD

    SheDiceToday,

    My dad helped with a ‘burial at sea’ thing. I’m sure they had some sort of permit, because it was a real to-do with a big casket weighted down so it would sink and such. The story goes that the weights weren’t enough to sink it, and the casket ended up being air tight, so they shot a few holes in it to let air out and water in. I’m pretty sure they did it in international waters.

    afraid_of_zombies,

    Oh God he is coming back up! Open fire! Machine gunning the casket

    vaultdweller013,

    Muffled “Kono Dio Da”

    stolid_agnostic,

    You can also just not claim grandma’s body and let your tax dollars handle it at an even bigger bargain.

    RaincoatsGeorge,

    You are absolutely correct sort of. After ten days we notify the state that nobody has claimed the body. They will then take upwards of 3 months and look into all of their family and known associates. I suspect if you are well off and don’t have a good reason to refuse to pay for a funeral they are going to put the pressure on you to do so. But I don’t know that there’s a legal Avenue for them to force you to do so. They can carve up that persons estate to pay for it and I think most people have a general quantity of things and money they can pull from. But yeah if that person has nothing and you say no, yah probably you’re gettin off.

    Your grandma will rot the whole time. We have to open those bags to confirm who is inside anytime they change hands so I get to see the remnants of that and u know it is what it is. Mostly it’s homeless people and that’s just the expected process. But occasionally there’s families that just won’t do it and I mean I’m not one to blame them. Even the cheapest traditional options are thousands of dollars.

    Fascinating industry though. It’s not my primary job but you have to learn the funeral business to function with those sorts. They’re my favorite. They’re all a little fucked up in their own way. Some a lot of way.

    stolid_agnostic,

    My family is under orders to abandon my body and let me rot.

    RaincoatsGeorge,

    That’s cool. They can’t and won’t. But I think it’s pretty straightforward for most middleish class people to set aside a few thousand to cover their disposal. You don’t even have to specifically set that money aside. You set it aside when you collect baseball cards or limited edition Mountain Dew code zero call of duty custom 2 liters.

    Just let your family carve up your bullshit and sell it to stupid drunk people.

    stolid_agnostic,

    lol so cute of you to assume that I have or ever will acquire anything of value or have savings. My only real goal in life is to not end up homeless before I die

    the_third,

    Families should prepare and bury their own, unembalmed with no casket.

    Half the people I meet in a day, I’m not certain how they manage to leave the house in the morning without accident.

    There would be a lot of dead people lying around and 180kg grandma seeping into the creek running by.

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