DENVER (AP) — Colorado authorities announced on Thursday that they are investigating a funeral home managed by a county coroner where inspectors discovered several decomposing bodies.
The bodies were discovered this week in a room concealed by a cardboard display during an inspection of Davis Mortuary in Pueblo on Wednesday. This occurred after Brian Cotter, an owner and the county coroner, asked inspectors not to enter the room, as stated in a document from state regulators. The inspectors detected a “strong odor of decomposition,” the document noted.
Cotter informed inspectors that some of the bodies had been waiting for cremation for approximately 15 years and admitted he might have provided fake cremated remains to families, according to the document, which detailed the reasons for the suspension of the mortuary’s license.
For many years, Colorado had some of the weakest regulations for funeral homes in the United States, lacking routine inspections or qualification requirements for operators. This weakness led to numerous abuses, including a pending case with almost 200 decomposing bodies discovered being kept at room temperature in a facility in Penrose, Colorado, approximately 30 miles from Pueblo.
A sentencing of one of the funeral homes owners in that case on charges of corpse abuse is set for Friday.
Cotter and his brother purchased Davis Mortuary in 1989, based on the business’s website. It mentions that the brothers adopted an “old school” method of operation from their father, who owned funeral homes in Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska.
A woman who answered the phone at the mortuary said it had no comment and declined to make Cotter available for an interview.
Cotter did not immediately respond to a message left with the Coroner’s office.
Officials from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Pueblo police, the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office, and the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies are scheduled to hold a press conference regarding the criminal investigation on Thursday afternoon.
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
