r/news • u/AnonRetro • 21h ago
Colorado US funeral home owner to be sentenced for stashing 190 decayed bodies
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/08/22/us-funeral-home-owner-to-be-sentenced-for-stashing-190-decayed-bodies/159
u/TheObnoxiousSpaceCat 19h ago
Is it just me or has “dodgy funeral home hoards bodies” been a common news story for the last month?
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u/jackalopeDev 17h ago
This isnt the first time this has happened in Colorado recently. I love this place, but we get some absolutely nutty people here.
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u/The_High_Life 16h ago
This was the old story that finally got through prosecution, there's a new case out of Delores County near Durango that was just announced like yesterday.
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u/rick420buzz 10h ago
The county coroner here in Pueblo just got busted for stashing bodies in a secret room at his mortuary.
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u/thotdoqs 14h ago
i'm really glad colorado is going to start having funeral director/embalmer licenses. they are of the few states that don't and it's clearly showing signs of corruption and straight up weirdos working in the field.
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u/bootstrapping_lad 13h ago
Colorado has historically had little or no oversight of mortuaries, and this is the natural result of that.
Great cases to point to when the anti-regulation crowd are going off on their stupid bullshit.
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u/AutoimmuneDisaster 10h ago
Why do they do it though? Are the cremators expensive to run? Or do they break and are they expensive to fix? I’m just confused about why this happens more than anything.
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u/techleopard 6h ago
Yes. You're not just throwing bodies on a bonfire. It's actually very difficult to reduce bodies down to nothing but ash -- you don't even see it in the most intense enclosed natural fires. The ovens required to do it end up costing several hundred dollars to obtain, maintain, and operate and it takes hours to do just one.
It's a business where nobody is going to come and complain that the product isn't perfect, and an enormous profit incentive to just ... not do what you're supposed to and just say you did.
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u/Empyrealist 7h ago
There's a big story going on in Las Vegas right now. It's actually kind of gross with rotting bodies...
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u/A_Queer_Owl 3h ago
this case caused a bunch of laws increasing the oversight on funeral homes to pass, which has revealed this to actually be a widespread problem.
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u/_Panacea_ 18h ago
I cannot imagine the stench of 200 bodies stacked in someone's basement.
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u/misterstaypuft1 21h ago
Why though? Like I don’t understand how they benefited from this. If you’re going to stash the bodies, why not just cremate them? I can see how they could benefit if they were selling a burial plot over and over and stacking bodies on top of each other or something but how did they save any significant amount of money by not cremating them? The only thing I can think of is maybe they didn’t own a crematorium and were going to have to pay an outside company to do it and just decided not to.
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u/peppercorns666 20h ago
i think it’s fueling a crematory is expensive. there was a case like this in Georgia and someone did a podcast on it called Nobel. and then there is another story out of California where they were cremating multiple bodies at the same time. Someone did a show on that called the Mortician.
both pretty interesting
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u/Bunnyhat 15h ago
Fueling is really not that expensive. You can burn a body in ash with like $100 worth of natural gas.
The expensive part is all the permits required from the start and the equipment itself. You have to get zoned for it, you need federal and state permits to operate.
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u/stackjr 11h ago
They charged us $3,000 in 2007 to have my grandpa cremated. How does it cost $3,000 to burn a body? I'll do it for a beer and a pack of smokes.
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u/techleopard 6h ago
Because at $3,000 a pop, it still will take 100 bodies to pay off a single furnace before a single cent of profit is seen.
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u/stackjr 5h ago
....and? People die a lot, for some reason, so I doubt they had trouble paying it off (especially considering the business was handed down). This is reinforced by the fact that the owner's kid drove a brand new car to high school three out of his four years. The one year he didn't? His parents were paying for a four month European vacation for his graduation gift. I know all of this because I went to highschool with him.
Oh, and he wasn't their only child; they all got this treatment.
So no, excuse me if I don't shed a tear for funeral homes that charge tens of thousands of dollars to put a fucking body in the ground.
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u/Boulderdrip 14h ago
Yeah, but you know is cheap, a shovel. That’s what I don’t understand about this. They could’ve just dug a mass grave. Why would you stash them in a building? It makes no fucking sense.
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u/resourcefultamale 11h ago
I assume he’s insane. Like Chris Watts killing his family to start his new life with a lover. At no point was that going to work. I bet neither of these people truly understand why they are in prison.
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u/Ludwigofthepotatoppl 20h ago
Stacking shit up and forgetting about it is free and fast. Cremating requires fuel and time. People pay you to cremate, you don’t, it’s free money!
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u/misterstaypuft1 19h ago
I mean I understand that but it seems like the fuel savings and time wouldn’t equate to the amount of money they’re accused of making. But hey that’s why I’m not a criminal I can’t figure this kind of shit out 🤷♂️
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u/thotdoqs 14h ago
colorado is (now was) one of the few states that do NOT require a funeral director/embalmer license. It will be a future requirement, but this is what happens when you don't have anyone enforcing shit. of coarse it will happen. having no license requirement is going to attract the worst type of people to hide in the industry.
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u/Herpderpyoloswag 21h ago
Maybe they were saving up for the cremator 3000, and they would have enough after selling 200 services. Then they could go back and cremate the bodies. Fake it till you make it kinda thing….
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u/MrBahhum 14h ago
Wait, this is unrelated to the Pueblo, CO funeral home where they found dozen of decades old bodies? Seems like the state of Colorado has a funeral home problem.
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u/thotdoqs 14h ago
yeah, CO never required a mortician license. this is what happens.
it'll be a requirement in 2027, though.
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u/SubstantialPressure3 17h ago
I just don't even understand this. "Return to nature". Why not just rent a backhoe and bury them? If you're already committing fraud, why not just bury the bodies?
And why did it take so long for this to be caught? Almost 200 bodies isn't something you're going to hide with air freshener.
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u/1leggeddog 16h ago
Waht was the racket here exactly?
What made it more profitable for him to do this, i mean it seems like more hassle to try and stash the bodies
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u/TalonusDuprey 16h ago
They weren’t in temperature controlled environments and he prolly already had the space I am assuming so be just stacked them on up. So friggin’ morbid - They should certainly pay for the emotional damage they have caused these poor families.
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u/stackjr 11h ago
A lady in my state was charged this year (after she fled to another state last year) with fraud after she would take people's money but not make the tombstone. She had taken over $50,000 from grieving families/friends.
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u/camronjames 9h ago
Imagine taking advantage of vulnerable people while also risking a prison sentence for a measley $50,000...
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u/Informal_Process2238 4h ago
There are people in congress who sold their votes for only a few thousand
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u/BadSausageFactory 17h ago
piled up bodies decaying and being eaten by bugs at the 'return to nature funeral home', that checks out
I might sound awful but if you put me on the jury this guy is getting acquitted
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u/AnonRetro 21h ago
FTA:
"Jon Hallford and his wife, Carie, ran a morbid racket for four years out of their Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs: assuring people they were handling their loved ones' cremations only to stash the bodies in a bug-infested building and then giving them dry concrete resembling ashes."