PUEBLO COUNTY, Colo. (KOAA) — By his own admission in state documents, the Pueblo County Coroner's private business had improperly stored bodies for 15 years. He's held elected office for 10 years and in that time even advocated for higher standards for those seeking his office in the future.
State inspectors believe there may be about 20 bodies that were improperly stored inside Davis Mortuary in Pueblo, which is co-owned by the coroner, Brian Cotter, and his brother. Law enforcement says they’ve spoken to both of them and while nobody has been arrested, police do not believe they are flight risks.
Cotter was first elected as coroner in 2014. In his decade in the office, he also advocated at the state capitol to limit who could run for his position.
During the 2024 legislative session, a bill to increase coroner qualifications was signed into law by Governor Jared Polis. It required those running for the office in Colorado’s counties with a population of more than 150,000 to be either a certified death investigator or a certified forensic pathologist. Previously, the requirements were limited to being eligible to vote in the county someone runs in, not a felon, and have a high school diploma.
Cotter testified in both House and Senate committees as the bill was making its way through the legislature last year. At the same time he was advocating for higher standards, his mortuary business was improperly storing bodies.
“I’ve had two reelection campaigns, both campaigns,” Cotter told legislators, “the individual that challenged me for the position, the two individuals that did had absolutely no experience, no training of any kind, no certification, and neither one of them had ever worked in the legal medical death investigation field.”
The challengers Cotter spoke of were Troy Newman in 2018 and Zolanye McCulley-Bachicha in 2022. McCulley-Bachicha previously worked as an emergency room nurse, and according to her campaign website, was “raised in the business” as her family has owned a funeral home in Pueblo for more than 50 years.
Cotter admitted to state inspectors this week that some bodies inside a room hidden behind a cardboard display had been there for 15 years. While the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said it does not have an official count of how many bodies were in that room, a director from the state’s Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) said they believed it was about 20.
Since Cotter is both a business owner at the center of this investigation and the elected official who would typically process the scene, it has led to other elected leaders calling for his resignation and more changes in state law to remove someone like Cotter from office in the event an incident like this occurring.
During Friday’s news conference, Governor Polis was asked if it was time to reconsider electing coroners in Colorado, as other states have regional medical examiner models.
“I don’t have a strong opinion on that [electing coroners] one one way or the other where I do have a strong opinion and I think frankly we can agree needs to be reformed after this is the way you remove a coroner from office that is subject to a criminal investigation, unable to do their job,” Polis said.
RELATED: 20 bodies or so' found behind 'hidden' door at Pueblo County coroner's private business
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