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”.
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.
Just put me in a Folgers can. Just because we’re bereaved doesn’t make us saps!
If they don’t allow that, then they’re descriminating against all of us Dudists!
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.
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!”
You can use a pinewood casket.
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?
Hmm ok so what do Roma, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus do?
Protest. There’s a few faith-specific funeral homes, even some that offer free burials for immigrants without resources, but otherwise just protest.
Refuse to accept the body. The local government will have to take care of it.
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).
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.
Hákarl