Families might have received fake ashes from funeral home

(20 Oct 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY: ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Penrose, Colorado - 6 October 2023
1. Footage of the exterior of the Return to Nature Funeral Home
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado Springs, Colorado - 19 October 2023
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Abby Swoveland, Return to Nature Customer:
"What I think Return to Nature did was take in bodies in Colorado Springs and their Penrose location. I have not idea where else they were operating. Um, took these bodies in, lied to us families and took the bodies of our loved ones down to Penrose and stacked them in with other bodies.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Penrose, Colorado - 6 October 2023
3. Footage of the exterior of the Return to Nature Funeral Home
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado Springs, Colorado - 19 October 2023
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Abby Swoveland, Return to Nature Customer:
"What I think happened to my mom's ashes, um, I don't have them. I am completely convinced that what I have is actually a bag of powdered cement. They're not ashes. I've looked online and talked to other people, and, um, these ashes don't look like ashes. They look like cement."
5. Various of Swoveland showing the bag she received from the funeral home
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Abby Swoveland, Return to Nature Customer:
“It's just powder. It's literally just grey powder. There's no variation in size or anything. I mean, it just looks like flour. But it's very heavy and, um, grey. The color of cement.”
7. Footage of Swoveland's mother's death certificate
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Abby Swoveland, Return to Nature Customer:
“I don't know that there are words strong enough to express that feeling, the anger combined with betrayal. And something so sacred as taking care of your loved one after they pass, and that being completely ignored.”
9. Various footage of family photos
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Abby Swoveland, Return to Nature Customer:
“It's unspeakable. It's unspeakable. It's truly the worst thing that my family has gone through. Her death was hard enough because we are a very close and tight-knit family. And her death was hard enough. And we were starting just to walk with it, and you know, understand that our life still goes on with that. And then this popped up, and it put me way back, back farther than I was when my mother passed. And healing, trying to heal from that and the trauma of that. And the trauma of knowing that someone did this to your loved one. And of course all the visions that play in your mind of your mom zipped up in a bag and just stacked. It's awful, and to think about how many other families are going through this as well, it's unconscionable that these people did what they did.”
11. Various footage of family photos
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Abby Swoveland, Return to Nature Customer:
“She deserved respect. She deserved a lot better than she got. She deserved to be treated with respect and respected, and honored, and none of that happened.”

STORYLINE:
A Colorado funeral home where 189 decaying bodies were discovered this month appears to have fabricated cremation records and may have given families fake ashes. That's according to information gathered by The Associated Press from customers and crematories.

The families that did business with Return to Nature Funeral Home fear their loved ones weren’t cremated at all and instead could be among the yet unidentified corpses authorities discovered after responding to a report of an “abhorrent smell."
“She deserved respect. She deserved a lot better than she got. She deserved to be treated with respect and respected, and honored, and none of that happened," she said.

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