Colorado Governor Signs Bills Regulating Funeral Homes

DENVER (AP) — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed two bills Friday changing state oversight of the funeral home industry after a series of gruesome discoveries, including 190 decomposing bodies at the facility, families are sent false ash and unauthorized sale of body parts.

The cases have brought to light Colorado’s lax funeral home regulations – some of the weakest in the country – and devastated hundreds of already grieving families.

Some families ceremonially scattered ashes that turned out to be fake. Others said they had nightmares about what their loved ones would look like in a state of decomposition.

“When mourning the loss of a loved one, the last thing a family should worry about is the trustworthiness and professionalism of those entrusted with the deceased person’s care,” Polis said in a statement.

The new regulations bring Colorado closer to most other states.

One requires regulators to routinely inspect funeral homes and give them greater enforcement powers. Another is implementing licensing for funeral directors and other industry workers. They would have to pass a background check and national exam while also having degrees and work experience.

Previously, funeral home directors in Colorado were not required to have completed high school, let alone a diploma.

The funeral home industry has generally agreed with the changes, although some have expressed concerns that the stringent requirements for funeral home directors are unnecessary and make it difficult to find job candidates.

The signing of the bills comes after a difficult year for funeral homes in Colorado.

In early October, neighbors noticed a putrid odor coming from a building in the town of Penrose, about two hours south of Denver. Authorities soon found 190 decomposing bodies there, including adults, infants and fetuses.

Somewhere stacked on top of each other. Decomposing fluid covered the floor, and flies and worms swarmed with them.

Nearly two dozen bodies were dated to 2019, and about 60 more were from 2020. After the bodies were identified, families who received the ashes learned that the cremations were not their loved ones.

The mother of a man whose body was found at a Penrose facility said she will follow Colorado lawmakers to make sure the new laws are rigorously implemented.

“I am very excited. “I think it’s a great first step,” said Crystina Page, mother of 20-year-old David Jaxon Page, who was killed by police during a mental health crisis in 2019.

The new legislation should lead to legislation requiring crematoria to independently verify the identity of bodies and then certify to the state that those remains were cremated, Page said.

In most states, funeral homes are routinely inspected, but Colorado had no such policy. The owners of the funeral home were arrested in November and faced hundreds of charges of abuse of corpses and other charges.

Just a few months later, in February, the woman’s body was found found in the back of the hearse where a funeral home on the outskirts of Denver left him for over a year. At least 30 sets of cremated remains were found at the funeral director’s home.

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Bedayn is a corps member of the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that brings journalists to local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, contributed to this report.