Colorado moves to change law after 190 bodies found decaying in funeral home

Proposals would stiffen state’s lax funeral home laws after series of gruesome cases, from sold body parts to fake ashes

After nearly 200 bodies were found stacked and rotting in a Colorado funeral home, lawmakers have proposed bills to overhaul the state’s threadbare funeral home regulations, which failed to prevent a string of gruesome cases – from sold body parts to fake ashes.

The cases have shattered hundreds of families. Many learned that their loved ones’ remains were not in the ashes they ceremonially spread or held tight for years but were instead decaying in a building or, in one case, the back of hearse.