DENVER (CN) — Today, virtually anyone can start a funeral home or embalming service in Colorado. That lax occupational freedom is unlikely to remain for long after the revelation of several businesses that accepted human remains, but failed to cremate or bury them as contracted by grieving families.
Following such funeral home scandals, a bipartisan bill requiring licenses to run mortuary science operations unanimously passed the Colorado Senate Committee on Business, Labor, & Technology on Tuesday.
As it stands, Colorado’s funeral regulations are considered among the nation’s loosest, with no licensing or background check requirements to run a funeral home, sell a casket, or prepare a body for the afterlife.
From 2010 to 2018, the director of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose sold body parts without consent to medical research facilities. A Fremont county couple faces criminal charges after federal investigators found the Return to Nature Funeral Home left human remains to rot instead of cremating them as promised.
Families in both cases say they unknowingly received animal ashes and concrete instead of their loved one’s remains.
“Colorado is literally the only state in the nation that does not license funeral operations and we can change that with this bill,” said state Senator Dylan Roberts, the bill's sponsor. A Democrat, Roberts represents 10 rural counties stretching from Garfield on the western slope to central mountainous Gilpin.
Senate Bill 24-173 aims to establish a framework to “Regulate Mortuary Science Operations,” requiring a new license to work as a funeral director, embalmer, natural reductionist or cremationist. While obtaining a license would require accredited education, an apprenticeship and criminal background check, the bill also provides an experience-based pathway for current practitioners to obtain a provisional license.
The bipartisan bill is sponsored by state Senator Bob Gardner of El Paso County and Representative Matt Soper of Mesa County, who are both Republicans, as well as Representative Brianna Titone, a Jefferson County Democrat.
Several victims of funeral home fraud testified in support of the bill, sharing the raw grief that comes with burying a lost love twice.
“Last weekend I went to Utah, to the arches, to spread my son’s ashes,” said Crystina Page, a victim of the Return to Nature Funeral Home. Page’s 20-year-old son David was killed by Monument police in 2019 during a mental health crisis. This was the second time Page scattered her son’s ashes.
Instead of being cremated, Page learned her son was stored in a broken fridge, exposed to insects and rodents.
“I didn’t know whether he was a mummy or a soupy — and honestly, no one should ever have to ask that question,” Page told the committee.
Another victim of Return to Nature, Mary Simons, said she found comfort in the calendar when forced to mourn her husband a second time.
“As I was struggling to pull myself out of this darkness, it was Oct. 5, my son’s birthday, and a day we will always remember as the day we lost Darrell for a second time,” Mary Simons told lawmakers. “I was lucky that his body was fresh enough to be identified quickly.”
As she arranged her soulmate’s second funeral, Simons said his remains were returned to her on their wedding anniversary.
Several industry-led organizations also testified in support of the bill.
“Asking mortuary practitioners to be licensed acknowledges them as professionals,” said Dalene Paull, executive director of the International Conference of Funeral Service Examining Boards. As the bill is written, “a significant number of people will meet the standards from day one and we shouldn’t presuppose that others won’t work to fill in the gaps," she said.
While no one outright testified in opposition of the bill, three people raised issues, asking for amendments particularly in light of the industry’s staffing shortages.
“My top concern is future workforce,” said Nicholas Hodgson, owner of Funeral Director’s Service, one of Colorado’s largest third-party crematoriums. Having owned his business for 20 years without a license, Hodgson said he was shocked by the Back to Nature investigation. Still, Colorado currently has only one very competitive mortuary science program at Arapahoe Community College.
“As drafted this bill will make it harder to hire, as the state’s only mortuary science program accepts and graduates about 30 students each year,” Hodgson said. “Everyone will be competing for that small pool of graduates.”
After passing its initial hearing, the bill moves on to the Senate Finance Committee.
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