Colorado lawmakers debate bill that would license funeral home directors after several grisly discoveries

After a series of gruesome discoveries at funeral homes over the last few years, state lawmakers are stepping in with a bill that would -- for the first time -- regulate those who work in the industry.

Colorado is the only state in the country that doesn't regulate funeral home directors. Sheila Canfield-Jones says it has resulted in enormous suffering. 

"It was hard because he had to keep telling us over and over again that that wasn't our daughter," Canfield-Jones explained. 

For four years, Canfield-Jones kept what she thought were her daughter's ashes at her home in Bailey, until she got a call she'll never forget.

"The ashes we had were fake, and that she had been positively identified as one of the bodies they found in Penrose," Canfield-Jones said.

Her daughter's body was one of nearly 200 decaying corpses investigators found stacked on top of each other at Return to Nature funeral home in Penrose last year. The owners are facing several felony charges.

"The thought of that and the disrespect, you know, she deserved better than that," Canfield-Jones said. 

Canfield-Jones is among several families now fighting for a bill that would require funeral home directors, morticians, cremationists and embalmers to have a mortuary science degree, complete a one-year apprenticeship and pass a criminal background check.

"We've seen too much tragedy in Colorado, too many heinous examples of funeral professionals, funeral homes mistreating bodies misrepresenting to customers about their services, " said State Sen. Dylan Roberts (D) of Summit County, one of the sponsors of the bill, that would also require regular state inspections of funeral homes.

State Rep. Matt Soper (R) of Delta County, a co-sponsor of the bill, agrees that regulation is long overdue. He began working on the issue before he was even elected.

"It's pretty surreal standing here today knowing that we're on the edge of not just making history but fulfilling a promise," Soper said. "And it's that fulfilling of a promise to the victims is why i ran for office in the first place and why we're here."

Canfield-Jones says she can't change what happened to her daughter, but she hopes to change the law in her honor.

"There's nothing that's gonna take that away," Canfield Jones said. "I think that she would want this. By changing the laws, we are helping everyone else.