FLORENCE — In the first week of October, law enforcement in Fremont County made what many residents are calling a “shocking” and “tragic” discovery.
The Fremont County Sheriff's Office released information on Thursday saying they have found improper storage of human remains at the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose Colorado. On Friday, in a press conference, county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies said 115 different human remains were found inside the funeral home.
Each one of these individuals whose remains were located in the funeral home, has a family, friends and loved ones who care about them. This investigation is not only impacting residents in Penrose, but all across Southern Colorado. One woman, from Florence, fears her husband could be one of them.
“I have no idea what happened to him. I've thought up until this week, I felt confident that they've already cremated him,” Mary Simons said. “Now, I don't know where he is,” Simons said.
Mary Simons and her sister in law, Anna Davisson, are holding on to one another and patiently waiting.
“People need to know there are families hurting right now, there are families who have been devastated all over again,” Simons said.
Simons said many people in the Fremont community are hurting.
“Be kind because we have had our hearts broke all over again and we are here hurting. As a community we are hurting. The whole community is outraged and shocked. There are people who are personally affected by this. We are here and we are hurting,” Simons said. “This is my husband, this is somebody's son, someone's brother, this is very personal and hard to deal with,” Simons said.
Simons does not know where her husband’s body or remains are.
“I am just thinking about him being there in that mess and it’s devastating to me,” Simons said.
Simons husband, Darrell Simons, passed away in August of this year. Simons is trying to grieve his loss. She said this week has been extremely difficult because she doesn't know if her husband is one of the remains found in the funeral home investigation.
“My whole world came crashing down and it's like that all over again,” Simons said.
After Darrel passed away, the Simons family's wishes were for him to be cremated.
“The very first thing they ask you is who do you want to contact,” Davisson said.
The family chose to use services from the Return to Nature Funeral Home for Darrell's cremation. Davisson and Simons said they chose this funeral home because they had a good experience with their services in the past. When Simons lost her mom in 2018, she the Return To Nature's cremation services.
“They called and checked on you, anything you needed, you could call them, they were very open and honest and it was a wonderful experience,” Simons said.
Simons said, in 2018, they were very kind, compassionate and helped her through the grieving process. She also mentioned they were cooperative when she notified them that she would be using medicaid to pay for the services.
“We did not have to make a payment, medicaid paid fully for my mom. We did not have to pay anything, we just wanted a little longer for medicaid to make their decision,” Simons said.
Simons and Davisson said this time everything was different. According to Simons, on the night her husband passed away, the family told the hospital, in Canon City, they would like to use the cremation services from the Return to Nature Funeral Home.
Davisson said when they provided the hospital with the funeral home's number, the hospital said the number was not working. Davisson found out the Funeral Home had moved location since they last used them in 2018, at a Cannon City location. Davisson said she noticed they used to be in Penrose and moved again into Colorado Springs. She said she did not think much of it because the services went well last time.
“So I went online, we looked up their phone number for their Colorado Springs office and provided that to them,” Davisson said.
On the night Darrel passed away, Simons said it was the hospital who initially called the Return To Nature Funeral Home’s Colorado Springs location, at their request. Simons said then someone from the funeral home called her and told her they were on their way to pick up her husband's remains.
“But since they have had my husband there has been almost no communication, expected invoices every week,” Simons said.
Mary and Davisson said their interaction with the funeral home In August was the opposite of when they used them in previous years.
“They were asking for payment up front, but he did have medicaid. So, I thought that was strange because that is not what happened before, when we dealt with her mother passing,” Davisson said.
Davisson said she reached out to a funeral home in Pueblo to get more information about the typical payment process and to see if they could potentially move him to a different funeral home.
“They said it would be so costly and we would be the ones who were responsible for paying to have him move and that's a huge undertaking,” Davisson said.
Davisson said they decided it would be best to stay with the Return to Nature funeral home. But Davisson said, problems continued.
“The funeral home said they needed a payment within three days,” Davisson said.
Davisson reached out to medicaid and they told her to have Simons fill out the necessary paperwork.
“We were under the understanding that once it was processed, they (Medicaid) would pay them (Return to Nature) and we would not need to worry about paying them right there, giving us the time frame of 6 to 8 weeks. But they did continue to send invoices to my sister in law,” Davisson said.
Simons showed News5 multiple invoices in her email from Hallford Homes LLC.
“It started 8/15, then against 8/17, then 8/18 again on 8/18,” Simons said.
Simons continues to get invoices. She has not been able to get in contact with anyone from the funeral home since August.
According to the Return To Natures Website, “as of July 2023, Return To Nature no longer offers cremation services.”
Davisson said she did not notice the comment on the funeral homes website back in August, but claims they were aware the family was requesting cremation services from the beginning.
“They definitely were aware that he was to be cremated because there is a charge on the invoices that is for a cremation fee,” Davisson said.
One invoice, in Simons email shows the funeral home was billing Simons $290.00 for a cremation.
“What we were expecting was that they had been created already,” Davisson said.
Simons said she was not concerned that she had not received her husband's ashes yet. She assumed he was already cremated and the funeral home was just waiting on payments from medicaid before giving Simons her husband's ashes.
“I know it takes six weeks to 6 to 8 weeks for Medicaid to come back. Tomorrow we're hitting the seven week mark, so I wasn't concerned until the news hit of what happened, because I figured they're still processing it,” Simons said.
This week's investigation, into the funeral home, has left Simons asking, “where is my husband?”
“I want to know what happened to him, I want to know if he is down here,” Simons.
Simons said she knows this is going to be a long process, but she has a lot of questions, like who is responsible and how did this happen?
“In the meantime we are just sitting here waiting, not knowing,” Simons said.
The Fremont County Sheriff said their number one priority is getting answers for the families and people impacted by this discovery.
Mary said going forward her hope is to see justice served, not only for her husband, Darrell, but also every person, family and friend impacted.
The Fremont County Sheriff's Office, CBI and the FBI are currently conducting the investigation into Return to Nature Funeral Home. The Frequent County sheriff's office has set up an email for family members of decedents who utilized the Return to Nature Funeral Home.
People are encouraged to send an email to 23-1941@fremontso.com. For people who do not use email, they can call the Fremont Emergency Management call line at (719)-276-7421. They have also developed a questionnaire to assist with the investigative process.
A Facebook group has also been made by a community member, 115 Grieving Families Seeking Justice.
____
Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just search KOAA News5, download and start watching.
