For many people, there are few more vulnerable times than the days and weeks after the death of a loved one. Grief is crushing, disorienting and all-encompassing. But in the midst of loss, we are often expected to make big decisions about how to lay our loved ones to rest. For some, this process is made easier by detailed funeral arrangements. But for others, especially those who have lost someone suddenly, figuring out what to do is a fraught venture into the unknown.
Part of this process involves choosing a funeral home to handle the remains and help plan services. In most cases, having an expert lend a hand in such a difficult time is a godsend. But in others, choosing the wrong funeral home can, apparently, lead to a traumatic and disquieting experience that no one should ever have to endure.
This is especially true in Colorado, where funeral home workers are not required to be licensed or to have any education, making our home the state with the laxest mortuary regulations in the nation.
It is well past time for that to change. A bipartisan bill introduced at the state Capitol earlier this month, Senate Bill 24-173, would make it a requirement to have a license to work as a funeral director, mortuary science practitioner, embalmer, cremationist or natural reductionist who converts human remains to soil. Lawmakers should pass this bill now to put an end to the shocking abuses that have occurred in the industry.
Just last month, the corpse of one woman and the cremated remains of at least 30 others were found at the residence of a former funeral director in Littleton.
The remains were found after the man had been evicted. In cleaning out the residence, the homeowners discovered the cremated remains, and when police arrived they found the woman’s body in a hearse in the backyard. Not only had the woman died in August 2022, but her family had been led to believe that they were in possession of her ashes.
Even more horrendous is the story of the Penrose location of Return to Nature Funeral Home where nearly 200 bodies were found rotting late last year. Investigators found bodies stacked on top of each other and stuffed into storage totes. The arrest affidavits for the funeral home directors describe “unimaginable conditions” and detail how one of the directors could be seen on surveillance footage treating bodies like sandbags.
And once again families were misled about the supposed cremated remains they were given by the funeral directors. One woman took what she believed to be her mother’s ashes to Hawaii where she spread them, only to learn later that her mother’s body was among those languishing in the funeral home. Investigators believe the funeral directors were filling urns with cement.
Finally, there is the case of the funeral home owner in Montrose who was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison for the absolutely macabre crime of dissecting more than 500 corpses and selling body parts without permission.
Beyond these horrific examples, it is worth reiterating that most funeral homes in our state are likely upstanding, that they follow the laws carefully, and treat the human corpses in their care with dignity and responsibility.
Which is another way of saying that any upstanding funeral home in our state should welcome regulation. On one hand, because they have nothing to hide. And on the other because they don’t want their industry tarnished by these bad actors.
“There definitely needs to be regulation and licensure in Colorado,” Mike Greenwood, of Boulder’s Greenwood & Myers Mortuary, said in a phone interview. “And they need to have the ability to inspect funeral homes at will. Currently, they don’t have that ability unless a complaint is filed against a funeral home.”
We couldn’t agree more.
For a start, the Fremont County coroner reported Return to Nature Funeral Home to a state agency in 2020 — three years before the operation was eventually shut down. But the department the coroner reported the funeral home to, the Department of Regulatory Agencies, had no power to inspect funeral homes at the time. (It gained the power to do so two years later.)
As for the case of the Littleton funeral director who had a woman’s body in his backyard, officials said he owed money to several crematories and that they had stopped working with him. As a result, he was unable to get the woman cremated.
In both of these cases, regulation could likely have kept things from spiraling out of control — and families from getting hurt.
If Colorado actively inspected funeral homes and had the personnel and resources necessary to investigate tips, Return to Nature could have been shut down years ago. And if crematories were required to report any suspicious activities from funeral homes — such as being unable to cover the costs of a cremation — then a funeral director’s backyard might not have had a body in it.
The same goes for the Montrose woman selling body parts. She operated a funeral home and a body parts entity from the same building, which is the sort of red flag that could at least ensure routine inspections.
The bill currently under consideration at the state Capitol would go a long way in plugging these holes.
Still, though, it is worth acknowledging that more robust regulation is not a panacea. In the wake of the Return to Nature Funeral Home tragedy, Chris Farmer, general counsel for the National Funeral Directors Association, told the Associated Press that stricter regulations won’t prevent every mishap, but that they can ensure problems are discovered more quickly. “You catch it at six or eight bodies,” Farmer said. Not nearly 200. For us, that is more than enough to support this regulation.
The fact of the matter is, Colorado is standing infamously alone on this issue. Licensure and education requirements are the norm elsewhere. And that should tell us a lot. We are used to being a proactive state that leads rather than follows. But on this, it’s time we humbly play catch-up and enact this sensible legislation.
For Greenwood, of Greenwood & Myers, it’s about giving families peace of mind in a deeply emotional time.
“The great majority of funeral directors in Colorado are respectable and honorable and perform their duties responsibly,” he said. “But there are these bad actors who give the whole industry a black eye.”
Regulation, he continued, can give families the comfort of knowing the person they are dealing with is respectable.
Senate Bill 24-173 is a great start. Let’s make sure our leaders get it passed.
— Gary Garrison for the Editorial Board
