Mishandled bodies and mixed-up remains lead to tougher funeral home rules • Rhode Island Current

The headlines were the stuff of nightmares.

A Colorado funeral home owner allowed a woman’s body to decompose for two years in a hearse parked outside his rented home while he stored the cremated remains of dozens of other people inside.

Last year, authorities discovered nearly 200 improperly stored bodies at another Colorado funeral home after receiving odor complaints from neighbors. Investigators later learned the funeral home had sent fake ashes to families who had paid for cremation services.

The incidents, which led to criminal charges, have sparked public outrage and traumatized families already coping with grief. But they have also highlighted lax regulations surrounding the state’s funeral industry.

For 40 years, Colorado had some of the most lenient funeral home laws in the country. It was the only state that didn’t require a professional license to become a funeral director. That changed this year.

Amid nationwide staffing challenges, some states have sought to make it easier to work in funeral homes and crematoriums. But after horrific incidents at some facilities, lawmakers in Colorado, Illinois and Michigan have sought to tighten controls on this essential but often overlooked industry.

“It’s just, ‘We have to do something. We have to solve this problem,'” said Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone, a Democrat who was among bipartisan sponsors of a new law tightening regulations on funeral homes.

People simply assume that funeral homes are safe and clean, she said, and that workers who handle embalming, cremation and burial do their jobs with due diligence.

“Because of the grief that these families went through, it was like they died all over again. And I don’t think a lot of people think that way until something like this happens,” Titone said. “That trust was broken about something sacred.”

A Michigan lawmaker is trying to change state law to ensure that bodies are kept cool while awaiting burial or cremation, following the discoveries of unrefrigerated bodies decomposing in the garage of a Flint funeral home and a Detroit funeral home storing more than 50 remains of infants and fetuses without the consent of the families.

“When a loved one dies, we deserve to know that their remains will be treated with the utmost respect,” Democratic state Sen. Kevin Hertel wrote in a local newspaper article about legislation he sponsored. “When we are dealing with grief and trauma, the last thing we need to worry about is a parent, sibling, spouse or child who has passed away being neglected in death.”

Hertel did not respond to requests for comment. His legislation has not moved forward.

Colorado Regulatory Moves

In Colorado, one law passed in 2022 expands the state’s authority to inspect funeral homes and crematoriums. Another passed this year requires funeral directors, embalmers and cremators to be licensed by the state — they must earn certain degrees or have sufficient work experience or certain industry certifications.

“It’s a huge deal,” said Faith Haug, director of the mortuary science program at Arapahoe Community College, the only accredited program in Colorado.

Haug, who holds professional licenses in several other states, was surprised to learn that when she moved to the Centennial State a decade ago, she wasn’t required to have a license.

“When I moved here, I found it a little offensive,” she said, noting that people with extensive education and experience were treated the same as those with no education at all.

While even the funeral industry came out in support of the bill this year, concerns have been raised about retaining current staff who were not previously required to obtain professional qualifications.

Beginning in 2027, the law will require funeral directors to complete an accredited educational program, pass a state-approved exam and have work experience.

However, the bill gives current funeral directors several options for obtaining a provisional license, including passing state exams or having 4,000 hours of documented work experience.

“The biggest concern is just disruption to the workforce,” Haug said. “If there aren’t different paths to licensure, the fear is that the workforce will essentially collapse.”

The tight labor market has forced some states to expand eligibility for licensed funeral workers. For example, Missouri lawmakers in recent years have sought to expand licensing, which currently requires passing an exam. The proposed legislation would allow workers who complete an approved internship to become licensed. The bill passed the state House but did not advance through the Senate before the end of this session.

“It’s not easy to convince people to join this profession,” said Chris Farmer, general counsel for the National Funeral Directors Association.

While he said he understands the need for regulation in some cases, he said all industries have bad actors: “Even in the most stringent states, someone is going to do something bad. You can’t stop it.”

“Things That Can’t Be Fixed”

State legislatures have been busy recently passing regulations on new practices, such as composting human remains and so-called water cremation.

Farmer noted that funeral homes conduct about 2.4 million funerals a year — and the vast majority of them never make headlines.

“Unfortunately, it’s a reactive situation,” he said. “Funeral services only get attention when something goes wrong.”

This was certainly the case in Illinois.

A local coroner discovered discrepancies in cremated remains last year that dated back years. Authorities said at least 80 families nationwide received the wrong remains — some of which had to be exhumed from a national cemetery.

“We found that families that were impacted were on the West Coast, the East Coast and everywhere in between,” said Illinois Sen. Doris Turner, a Democrat.

Turner sponsored successful legislation this year that requires funeral directors to use unique identifiers on the body, body bag or any donated body part or organ of the deceased. She said the supply chain should prevent future problems with funeral homes mixing remains.

“For me, this is probably the most important piece of legislation I have been able to pass during my term in the General Assembly,” she said.

Some families scattered the ashes in places of special significance, and one woman told Turner that for months she had been talking to an urn in her home that she believed contained her mother’s remains.

These families later learned that what they had were the remains of strangers.

“These are things that can’t be fixed,” Turner said.

Sheila Canfield-Jones, who lives about an hour outside Denver, never thought about challenging the funeral home she found online after her daughter died of a heroin overdose in 2019. The Colorado facility promoted natural funeral services and promised to plant a tree in her daughter’s honor.

Four years later, the FBI notified her that she had not received her daughter’s cremated remains; she had only received a box of ground-up concrete.

Her daughter’s body was among those left to rot for years at the Return to Nature funeral home.

“You have nightmares,” she said. “You think, ‘What did she look like? What did the room look like?’ There were 190 bodies. There was a baby.”

Canfield-Jones said the gruesome stories and testimonies from affected families are too difficult for lawmakers to ignore.

“We were bugging them like hell,” she said. “So they had to listen.”

While she believes the regulations were a solid first step in addressing the industry’s problems, she said it will take time to rebuild trust. In the meantime, she said, she wouldn’t want to be taken to a funeral home in Colorado.

“If I died tomorrow, I’d be in a car driving to Kansas,” she said. “Until this is all over, I don’t know if I can trust anybody. You want to believe there are good people in this industry doing good work. And I’m sure there are. But how do you know?”