The find at the funeral home in Colorado

Coroner Randy Keller in a light shirt in front of the funeral home. Parker Seibold/AP 

 

115 rotting bodies at "green" funeral home  

 

A foul stench led police investigators to an avowedly eco-friendly funeral home in rural Fremont County, Colorado, where at least 115 rotting bodies were found, writes the New York Times. 

 

Fremont County Sheriff Allen Cooper said police were met with "horrific" and "very disturbing" scenes at the scene. The investigators plan to call in teams that usually work with plane crashes, coroners from other areas and the FBI, AP writes.  

 

The "Return to nature" funeral home specializes in funerals where neither chemicals nor embalming fluids are used. The owner "admits that he has a problem at the property," a local regulator wrote in a letter notifying the funeral home that its license was being revoked.  

 

According to the letter, the owner has tried to cover up the improper storage of human remains.  

 

 

Barricade outside the funeral home / Mary Simons with a picture of her deceased husband (far left of the photograph). TT  

 

New grief process for Mary: "Lost my husband again"  

 

Mary Simon's husband Darrell Simons had lung cancer and died in August of pneumonia. She then hired the funeral home "Return to nature" in Fremont County in Colorado, which would cremate her husband and give her the ashes, AP writes.  

 

But the ashes never returned and now Mary suspects her husband was one of the 115 improperly stored bodies that caused a strong stench and led to a major police operation at the ostensibly eco-friendly funeral home.  

 

- Suddenly it's like "Oh my God, I've lost him again". It's like the grieving process starts all over again, says Mary Simons with tears in her eyes.