'The FBI told me I'd been given someone else's remains': Inside the Colorado green-burial scandal

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-fbi-told-me-i-d-been-given-
someone-else-s-remains-inside-the-colorado-green-burial-scandal/ar-
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When he received his father’s ashes, a death certificate, and a folded
American flag in December 2020, Rich Law assumed that the 86-year-old
military veteran had been cremated.

The awful truth of what happened to Roger Law, who had died of Covid, did
not become apparent until October last year when he was visited by the
FBI, a representative of the coroner’s office, and a victims’ advocate.

“They told me the remains I received were not, in fact, my father’s. They
didn’t know what was given to me,” Mr Law, 63 told the Telegraph.

Mr Law senior’s body was one of 190 rotting corpses found stacked in the
Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colorado, just over 100 miles
south of Denver.

He had been identified by his fingerprints, which had been stored as a
result of his military service. The corpses were discovered after nearby
residents complained of putrid smells emanating from the premises.

It took more than a month to remove the bodies from the building where the
authorities reported “abhorrent conditions” with “human decomposition
fluids and insects” lining the floors.

Carie and Jon Hallford, the proprietors of the funeral home, were arrested
in Oklahoma after fleeing Colorado. They are facing 190 charges of abusing
a corpse, 61 charges of forging death certificates and five of theft,
after charging for cremations which were never performed.

Their company, now mired in scandal, had previously been lauded for its
environmental credentials.

“Green Burial is a natural way of caring for your loved one with minimal
environmental impact.” the funeral home’s website said.

‘It’s such depravity, it’s awful’
Mr Law and his brother were among those who were seduced by the company’s
image.
“We looked up Return to Nature online. There were a lot of good reviews. I
paid $1,300 to have my father cremated and have the ashes returned to me.”

According to the FBI, the ashes which were returned to grieving families
were recycled concrete.

“It is such depravity. It was awful,” Mr Law said. “This is the last act
of care we provide for them in a physical tangible way and these guys were
out trying to make a quick buck,” he added.

“It is a reopening of grief. I had this grief wound which has healed up a
little bit and it is re-opened up. There is disbelief, shock, and a lot of
anger.”

Return to Nature had capitalised on the growing popularity of ‘green
funerals’. Embalmed bodies do not decompose naturally, and concrete vaults
are considered to be environmentally costly. As a result, there has been a
growth in sales of biodegradable coffins, which decompose naturally into
the earth along with the body inside.

A survey by the Natural Funeral Directors Association in 2022 found that
more than 60 per cent of Americans would consider “green funeral options.”

‘It was as bad a time as a mother can have’
Crystina Page, 44, was another one of the company’s clients. Her son,
David, was 20 years old when he died in 2019.

“I was notified on September 24 2023, that his body had been identified at
the Return to Nature Funeral Home,” she told the Telegraph.

“We were in court and saw about 60 pictures of the inside of the funeral
home as it was when the first responders arrived. I had no idea at the
time how awful it was going to get. Seeing their bodies in court was as
bad a time as a mother can have.”

Recounting the atrocious scenes, Ms Page said “you couldn’t tell what
colour the floors used to be through the eight inches of decomposition
fluids and bugs.”

“They had bug bombs and industrial vacuum cleaners to try to mitigate the
problem. They failed miserably,” she said. “We also learned that they have
exhumed the body of a man from the national cemetery. It was the wrong
body. A woman lay in the grave in his place, wrapped in duct tape.”

Her son was finally cremated on November 8 last year.

“It took three times as long as it should have. There was a chemical which
let off gas which required them to evacuate the crematorium,” Ms Page
said.

“With the size of his body it should have filled one urn, it filled
three.”

Other victims of the scam included Gary and Shelia Canfield-Jones, who
discovered that the body of their daughter Marella had been decaying for
four years in the Colorado funeral home. She was 38 when she died on
October 8 2019.

“My husband picked them out because they said would plant a tree for her,”
Mrs Canfield-Jones told the Telegraph “You don’t normally do business with
funeral homes. You don’t really know what to look for.

“There is no way to find if they are licensed or what their reputation is.
You look at the website or an ad on TV. You assume that everybody is
honourable and has compassion.”

Mrs Canfield-Jones said she was contacted by the FBI on October 26 last
year.

“They told us over and over again that it wasn’t our daughter’s ashes and
they had identified her from their fingerprints,” she said.

“There was something wrong for that to happen and to so many people.
Aren’t there rules which stop that from happening?”

Kelly Bennett, 44, still does not know if her aunt, Janet McGowan, who was
supposedly cremated by Return to Nature, was one of those whose bodies
were found.

“I should have got a document that she was cremated and there should have
been a cremation tag. Neither of those has been given to me,” she told the
Telegraph.

“We just don’t know, it’s heartbreaking. We may never know, that is where
I have got to in my head we may never know.”


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We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.

No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.