A woman has spoken about the horrifying moment she realised her mother was one of 190 decomposing bodies at a funeral home.
Abby Swoveland claims she was given ashes which turned out to be concrete after it emerged that dozens of bodies were left stacked on top of each other at Nature Funeral Home in Colorado.
According to authorities, some of the bodies had 2019 death dates when officers found “abhorrent” conditions in October last year.
Funeral home owners Jon and Carie Hallford were arrested for approximately 190 counts of abuse of a corpse, five counts of theft, four counts of money laundering and over 50 counts of forgery.
Funeral home owners Jon and Carie Hallford were arrested for approximately 190 counts of abuse of a corpse, five counts of theft, four counts of money laundering and over 50 counts of forgery
Wagoner County Sheriff
Among the bodies was Abby's mum Sarah Swoveland, who passed away at the age of 77 on August 5 last year.
"I called a couple of funeral homes online and went for Return to Nature Funeral Home. It was a family-owned business and I loved that they would plant a tree in honour of loved ones," Abby told the Daily Mirror.
"I said to them this makes me feel better that you have her. She's handled by people who will treat her with respect. The fact that I said that will haunt me."
Abby agreed to pay $1,600 for the cremation and asked for the process to be conducted locally.
Abby received a call to say her mother was ready to be collected and on arrival was handed paperwork and a black box.
Concerns began to grow when the certificate stated her mother's cremation had been conducted an hour and a half away.
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"I thought that was weird as I had asked for a local cremation", she said. "There were also inconsistencies on her death certificate but I trusted them."
After news broke about her mother's funeral home being investigated, Abby then tried to trace the cremation.
She said: "Wilbert had no record of cremating my mother. They said that normally there is a plastic bag, a metal tag and a certificate of the cremation. I had none of these. I took the bag out and it looked like cement."
After being told her mother was cremated at Commerce City, she rang and found they had no record of Sara.
Following an investigation, the bodies were located and removed by the FBI - they were then able to fingerprint Sara.
Her daughter said: "My mum was left in the funeral home from August 7 to October. They had put industrial shelving up so the bodies were stacked up, with dozens across the floor.
"It's unbelievable these people were stuck on each other. It was filled with insects, bodily fluids and abhorrent smells.
After news broke about her mother's funeral home being investigated, Abby then tried to trace the cremation
PA
"The building had to be demolished because of biohazard concerns. My daughter and I had been learning to walk with the grief but this took me straight back to when she died but worse. This is so much worse and traumatising."
Abby added that her mum's funeral box was also unusually heavy, she said: "I thought this box was very heavy, my mum was only 85 pounds, I thought this was odd. I weighed the ashes and it was 6.3 pounds of concrete.
"I researched and found my mum's ashes would have been 3.5-4 pounds. I just have this image of seeing them in the back, pulling out the bags, and shoving the cement in there."
Abby now wants to see a change in the law as Colorado is the only state with no license requirement to be a funeral director.
"It's shocking to me that our fairly progressive state, who I would expect to look out and represent my family, have no regulation in place" she said.
"There needs to be an education of people handling bodies. I carried around a lot of shame because I chose these people. I let this happen to my mum, but it shouldn't be my shame to carry - it should be the shame of the accused."