The discovery of more than 115 decaying bodies at Return to Nature, a Penrose funeral home that provided flame cremations but primarily marketed itself as a “green” burial business, has inspired questions about a niche of the modern funeral industry whose practices date back to the dawn of grief and ritual.

Colorado law requires bodies that haven’t been cremated or buried within 24 hours of death to be embalmed or refrigerated to prevent decomposition, said Seth Viddal, co-owner and CEO of The Natural Funeral, which operates green funeral homes in Lafayette and Loveland.

Families that eschew embalming, and turn to Viddal’s company for a green burial, have a number of eco-friendly choices for final disposition, from direct interments in biodegradable caskets, shrouds or nothing at all, to decomposition via other natural forces.

Refrigeration allows families time to make decisions about “natural death care,” and, if they so choose, to see their loved one a final time looking as they did in life, said Viddal. He said that between the two funeral homes and an Arvada care center where eco-cremations are carried out, The Natural Funeral has climate controlled morgue space for 14 decedents at a given time. Bodies are kept at 36 degrees – above freezing, but cold enough to slow cellular breakdown that sets in minutes after a heartbeat stops.

“When done properly, and when the rules are followed and refrigeration applied, that decomposition process is paused or slowed to such an effective extent that families can go on to interact ceremonially with their loved ones,” Viddal said. “And they look like themselves, not altered with cosmetics and filled with chemicals … until such time as they are cremated or buried.”

Between 15% and 20% of the families The Natural Funeral serves opt for eco-friendly burials, he said. Such interments are legal in almost all established Colorado cemeteries, including Pikes Peak National Cemetery (and with the proper permitting, paperwork and given no local ordinances forbid it, on private property).

The services accompanying such goodbyes look like any other funeral; the only difference being cost, and what happens under the ground, Vidal said.

By far, the most popular services his funeral homes offer are “alternative” dispositions available due to “emerging technologies.”

Water cremation, offered since 2019, uses a solution of heated water and potassium hydroxide to trigger natural chemical processes that break down organic matter over the course of hours.

“It’s one of the fastest growing segments of business at the Natural Funeral because people connect with a safe and rapid transformation of their loved one’s body back into something which can be gifted to the earth and returned to the cycle of life,” said Viddal, about a process added to the state’s legal definition of “cremation” in 2014.

Terramation – also known as body composting or natural organic reduction – is an even newer technology in which decomposition occurs in a hermetically sealed vessel where the environment is regulated to promote the rapid, “safe and effective transition of the body from a body into soil,” said Viddal. The option currently is only legally available in seven states, including Colorado, which considers the resulting soil human remains, much like ashes.

While flame cremations are the “most rapidly declining section,” Viddal said they still represent about 20% of his business.

Such cremations are not considered “green” due to the pollution created by the incineration process, but it’s an option Viddal said he will continue to offer as long as it’s what families want.

“We use a third party to perform our flame cremations. That technology is one that pollutes and is not one we want to invest in, but it is the least expensive option, and for some of our clients that is a driving factor,” Viddal said.

The trade rate for cremation, he said, is only a few hundred dollars per decedent.

Which – depending on what state and federal authorities discover over the course of what is poised to be a lengthy investigation – could lend more disturbing context to an already ghastly story, of loss compounded by wrong.

That’s the part that really gets to him, said Viddal: the victimization of the grieving. The violation of the dead.

“Whether these bodies turn out to have been somehow removed from their intended disposition, which was say a green burial, and improperly stored, or whether they were removed from the cycle of a cremation and improperly stored, the major transgression is they were improperly stored,” Viddal said. “This is an undignified treatment of human remains … and a horrible mistreatment of the families who now are left wondering if the remains they have actually belong to their loved one.”

Police made the gruesome discovery Wednesday, while following up on neighbors’ complaints of an “abhorrent smell” coming from the Penrose location of a funeral home business founded in 2017 in Colorado Springs, where it maintained offices.

Return to Nature’s license to practice as a funeral home, at all its locations, has been suspended. No arrests have been made. Gross wrongs were done, but whether charges will be filed remains to be seen.

Fremont County Coroner Randy Keller said Friday it will likely take several months for the more-than 115 bodies to be identified – through fingerprints, medical and dental records, and DNA testing – and families notified.

Viddal said he is heartbroken for the families now left in limbo, awaiting answers and closure, as the investigation plays out. 

“As an ethical funeral home operator who genuinely falls in love with the families we serve, I cannot begin to fathom an emergency that could possibly explain …,” Viddal said. “One body, if you’re in over your head, you call for help.”