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submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Authorities find more bodies after initial report of 115 two weeks ago, when owners were evicted and police investigated foul odor

The remains of at least 189 decaying bodies were found and removed from a Colorado funeral home, up from about 115 reported when the bodies were discovered two weeks ago, officials said Tuesday.

The remains were found by authorities responding to a report of a foul odor at the Return to Nature funeral home inside a decrepit building in the small town of Penrose, Colorado.

Efforts to identify the remains began last week with help from an FBI team that gets deployed to mass casualty events like airline crashes. Fremont sheriff Allen Cooper described the scene as “horrific”.

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Wtf is this thread. There's a comment chain going wild about how to bury your own body.

Is there a Lemmy bestOf?

[-] jarfil@lemmy.world 60 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

When you have a loved one pass away... and you get forced to pony up $10k for a basic service, cremation in a nice casket, and a pretty expensive "basic" urn for the ashes, because the funeral home won't let you use anything cheaper like a pine box or a shroud, with the only choice being between an "eco gas" cremation in your own city vs. a $2k cheaper "non eco" one a city over... you'll understand why people call funeral homes parasites and look for alternatives.

[-] dammitBobby@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

Just put me in a Folgers can. Just because we're bereaved doesn't make us saps!

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[-] EssentialCoffee@midwest.social 9 points 1 year ago

I just had to do this. It was less than $4K for cremation, two services with funeral home staff (multi-hour, including on location at the church), and all of the guest books/cards/etc, plus announcements. I'd have to look at my paperwork for the exact amount.

They even told us to bring our own urn because it would be cheaper than anything the funeral home could provide, so we did.

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[-] SeedyOne@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

You're seeing that in-between moment when a wildly ignorant comment is upvoted to the top quickly but comes down slowly. It's still hot, but the OP has been downvotes far below most corrective comments.

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[-] Chickenstalker@lemmy.world 73 points 1 year ago

Funeral homes are parasites. Families should prepare and bury their own, unembalmed with no casket. A dead body is the most biodegradable matter in nature. Why pump it full of formalin and doll it up like a tart? Mourn the life of the dead, not their physical body.

[-] drolex@sopuli.xyz 107 points 1 year ago

Preparing and burying your own is a recipe for cholera outbreak

[-] deus@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

Easy fix: don't bury people, just leave the bodies out in the open so scavengers can do their job.

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago
[-] jarfil@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

We already have microplastics coming down with the rain, what's a few prions on top of that.

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[-] snail@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

scavengers would die of toxicity from NSAIDs, chemo drugs, and whatever else modern humans load up on before their death. This already happened in places known for sky burials

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[-] roguetrick@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Cholera more requires the living and untreated water. Palestine is a recipe for a cholera outbreak. You'd need some spread among the living before the corpses become a real vector.

E coli maybe, but once again, only with untreated water.

For the most part, corpses don't really spread a lot of disease other than whatever killed them.

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[-] FraidyBear@lemmy.world 43 points 1 year ago

It's illegal almost everywhere in the US to have a "natural" burial. There are laws on containers, treatment, and where the deceased can be buried. Dead bodies, while very biodegradable are also toxic and tend to get dug up and parts drug around by animals, up rooted by trees, or dug up during construction after the property is bought out. I do agree that funeral homes are soulless vultures who fleece people in mourning though, the last "fuck you" from capitalism.

[-] at_an_angle@lemmy.one 11 points 1 year ago

I've looked it up years ago. In my state, you don't need embalmed, a vault, or anything really. You can throw a fresh body into the ground in a handmade pine box if you want.

I think the only restriction is an approved site for burial.

[-] RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 year ago

What constitutes a natural burial? At a cursory glance there are only about 5 states that don’t permit home burials and many of those just say it has to be in a cemetery, but you can apply for a family cemetery on your property and it’s completely legal.

In Virginia and West Virginia at least there are no requirements whatsoever that you use a casket or bury them to any specific depth. I’d suspect that if you were disrespecting grandma and threw her in the garbage you would be breaking desecration of remains laws but doing a legitimate burial at home is completely fine.

I can only speak to the laws of my state and those around me, and I suppose local municipalities might have differing laws, but it’s pretty open ended. You do not need a funeral home involved at all and frankly given how expensive these things are I totally support families that go that route.

[-] rckclmbr@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I wish I could have a sky burial but I'm pretty sure theres nowhere in the US that could happen. And it would freak my wife out. I think the best option is aquamation (or hopefully recomposting since it was just legalized in california), since I can't have a sky burial

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[-] AlexisFR@jlai.lu 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Are you out of your mind?

[-] the_third@feddit.de 23 points 1 year ago

Families should prepare and bury their own, unembalmed with no casket.

Half the people I meet in a day, I'm not certain how they manage to leave the house in the morning without accident.

There would be a lot of dead people lying around and 180kg grandma seeping into the creek running by.

[-] RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zip 21 points 1 year ago

Fun fact. It’s completely legal and ok to take possession of your loved one, provided you are their legal next of kin, and you can effectively bury them yourselves. Find someone on Craigslist that can throw together a pine box and rent out an excavator for a weekend and you can bury grandma for a fraction of the cost.

I have loaded a corpse into the bed of a pickup truck. We have sat bodies upright in the back of a suburban. All of this is completely legal so long as you don’t cross state lines and even then you just need a permit.

Each state handles it differently but largely this is the same wherever you go.

Spend the 5k to 10k on a nice trip to Vegas, Grammy would have wanted it that way.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Is it legal to have a Viking funeral where you're set adrift in a longboat and someone fires a flaming arrow at it and it goes down on fire? Asking for a friend.

[-] SoylentBlake@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

No. Not an any state when I looked into it a decade ago

That being said, sometimes it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, if you get me.

[-] SheDiceToday@eslemmy.es 5 points 1 year ago

My dad helped with a 'burial at sea' thing. I'm sure they had some sort of permit, because it was a real to-do with a big casket weighted down so it would sink and such. The story goes that the weights weren't enough to sink it, and the casket ended up being air tight, so they shot a few holes in it to let air out and water in. I'm pretty sure they did it in international waters.

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[-] papertowels@lemmy.one 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What happens if you don't own land?

Wait..You... You are saying to only bury your dead on your own land, right?

Padme_meme.jpg

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[-] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

It turns out that humans and their pets are horrible for the environment because we’re just filled with chemicals from medication, cosmetics, and food. We’re not living our natural best anymore.

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[-] MisterHavoc@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

In theory... Let's say I bury my loved one far away from the city. Couple months later some hiker finds an arm that an animal pulled out. Police gets involved. They blame it on the cartels... At what point do I say anything, and if I do, how much trouble am I in?

[-] sebinspace@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago
[-] MisterHavoc@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Of course. It goes without saying.

[-] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

It depends on your jurisdiction, it's a felony in some places.

[-] i_simp_4_tedcruz@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

Nobody wants to talk about the fact that this is very clearly a former Pizza Hut?

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this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
370 points (97.0% liked)

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