A Colorado funeral home that specializes in “green” burials and does not use chemicals when embalming bodies is under investigation for improperly storing bodies.
Local authorities were alerted to suspicious activity at Return to Nature Funeral Home on Tuesday.
Police returned to the scene on Wednesday with a search warrant and found several human remains in very poor storage.
“Garbage bags were seen on Thursday at the entrance to the building, which was guarded by two police cars. A containment perimeter was set up and a smell of plague could be felt in the air,” ABCNews reported.
“Green” burials without chemical preservation techniques are legal in Colorado, but the law requires that a body not buried within the next twenty-four hours be properly refrigerated and stored.
Several neighbors did not even know about the services of the house, which has changed hands several times in recent years. Some of them had smelled foul odors over the past few weeks and thought it was dead animals or a broken septic tank.
According to American media, families who did business with the company were asked to contact the sheriff’s office to inquire about the condition of their loved ones’ remains.