Colorado is drastically altering the way it regulates the funeral home industry following a string of horrifying cases across the state in recent years, including the illegal sale of body parts, the discovery of hundreds of decomposing bodies and the dispersal of fake ashes to grieving families.
Gov. Jared Polis on Friday signed a trio of bills that will bring Colorado in line with other states in regulating the funeral home and mortuary industry.
SB24-173 will require, for the first time, that funeral home directors and people holding other industry jobs obtain licenses by passing background checks, earning degrees in mortuary science and apprenticing under a seasoned worker.
The second bill, HB24-1335, requires state regulators to conduct routine inspections of facilities — something they have never had the power to do.
“It’s time to professionalize the funeral home industry in Colorado,” Polis said at a news conference Friday.
Colorado’s regulations over the funeral home industry have long been the weakest in the nation.
The state had been the only one in the country that didn’t license funeral directors or require some certification. State officials haven’t regularly inspected funeral homes and only devoted one-quarter of one full-time position to regulate 220 funeral homes and 77 crematories.
The Colorado Funeral Directors Association, the industry group representing funeral homes, worked with lawmakers on the bills and agreed it was long past time to bring the state in line with the rest of the country.
“Colorado unfortunately has become a national embarrassment for tragedies and mishandling of human remains in the funeral industry,” said state Sen. Dylan Roberts, an Avon Democrat, who sponsored two of the bills.
The bill signings follow a rocky year for Colorado funeral homes.
In early October, neighbors noticed a putrid smell coming from a building in the town of Penrose about two hours south of Denver. Authorities soon found 190 decaying bodies in the Return to Nature funeral home, including adults, infants and fetuses.
Some were stacked atop each other. Decomposition fluid covered the floors while flies and maggots swarmed.
Almost two dozen bodies dated to 2019 and some 60 more were from 2020. As the bodies were identified, families who had received ashes learned the cremains weren’t their loved ones.
The mother of a man whose body was found in the Penrose facility said she would keep after Colorado lawmakers to make sure the new laws are implemented stringently.
“I’m super excited. I think this is a great first step,” said Crystina Page, mother of David Jaxon Page, 20, who was killed by police during a mental health crisis in 2019.
In February, just months after the discovery at Return to Nature, a woman’s body was found in the back of a hearse where a suburban Denver funeral home had left it for more than a year. At least 30 sets of cremated remains were found stashed throughout the funeral director’s home.
Before this legislative session, it had been 41 years since lawmakers made substantial changes to this industry.
“No one wanted to touch the death care industry,” said Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican, and bill sponsor. “It’s a dark, dark world.”
Polis on Friday signed a third bill into law that adds additional regulations for nontransplant tissue banks.
HB24-1254 mandates these businesses obtain consent from donors and disclose to them a host of information about where these donations will be going. Donors will be allowed to limit the sale of donated human remains to places like the military or for nonmedical research uses.
This law comes in direct response to the Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors‘ scandal in Montrose. A mother-daughter tandem was sentenced to decades in prison last year for selling body parts without the consent of grieving families. Many of these “donations” went to places for non-medical research, unbeknownst to the families.
“It’s surreal,” said Danielle McCarthy, one of the Sunset Mesa victims, after the bill signing. “But I’m saddened it took so many tragedies to get here.”
Lawmakers also tackled coroner regulation this session.
HB24-1100, signed into law in April, requires coroners of counties with a population exceeding 150,000 to be forensic pathologists or certified death investigators.
Previously, coroners had few qualification requirements: The person had to be 18 or older, a U.S. citizen, a resident of the county he or she served and have no felony convictions. There was no requirement to have a medical degree or any previous training related to death investigations.
Qualifications for coroners in smaller Colorado counties, though, will remain the same.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.
