THE FIRST INSPECTION: Colorado's New Funeral Law Caught a Coroner Hiding Two Dozen Bodies

*Colorado had no funeral home inspectors. Then it hired two. Their first inspection found an elected coroner hiding two dozen decomposing bodies.*

The first funeral home inspection Colorado conducted under its new licensing law opened a hidden door at Davis Mortuary in Pueblo. Behind it, inspectors found decomposing bodies. Some had been there for more than a decade.

The business belonged to Brian Cotter. He was not just a funeral director. He was the elected coroner of Pueblo County, the public official responsible for deciding how people died. His brother ran the mortuary with him. On June 25, 2026, both men were arrested and charged with 152 felonies each, 125 of them for abuse of a corpse, according to the Pueblo Chieftain and the Colorado Sun.

How Colorado got to one inspector's first visit

For most of its history, Colorado licensed almost no one in the funeral business. It was the only state that did not require funeral directors to hold a license. It employed no inspectors. There was no state office checking whether bodies were refrigerated or whether families got the right remains back.

That changed only after 2023, when authorities found roughly 190 decomposing bodies at Return to Nature Funeral Home in the town of Penrose. Owners Jon and Carie Hallford had stored bodies in a building with no refrigeration, handed families concrete dust instead of cremated remains, and kept taking payment. In April 2026, a state judge sentenced Carie Hallford to 30 years in prison, the Guardian and PBS reported. The case forced a law Colorado had resisted for years.

In 2024, Governor Jared Polis signed a package of bills requiring licenses for funeral directors, cremationists, and embalmers, and creating a regulatory office inside the state's Department of Regulatory Agencies. Colorado Newsline, CPR, and the Colorado Sun reported on the signings. Existing operators were given under a year to get licensed. KKTV reported the deadline put operators in a scramble. The state then hired its first funeral home inspectors. There are two of them, for the whole state.

The inspection that caught Davis Mortuary

Davis Mortuary was the first establishment inspected under the new regime, the Pueblo Chieftain reported. What inspectors found echoed Penrose. Roughly two dozen people's remains had been mishandled. Decomposing bodies were hidden behind a door in the building, the Associated Press and the New York Post reported. Some had been decomposing for more than ten years.

That last detail matters more than the charges. If bodies were hidden at Davis Mortuary for over a decade, the practice was already underway when Return to Nature made national news in 2023. It was underway when Colorado debated and passed the reform law in 2024. Two years of new regulation passed, and the only thing that exposed the second failure was a single inspector's first walkthrough.

The structure the law did not touch

Here is the part the charges do not answer. Brian Cotter was the Pueblo County coroner. A coroner decides the cause and manner of death for people who die suddenly or under unclear circumstances. Cotter also owned the funeral home where families in the same county brought their dead for burial and cremation. The same person investigating a death was selling the services to handle it.

That is not illegal in Colorado. It is not illegal in most of the country. Elected coroners and funeral home operators have overlapping work in counties across the United States, and many states allow one person to hold both roles. The new Colorado law added licensing and two inspectors. It did not separate the coroner's office from the funeral business.

Denver7 reported that the homes of Cotter and his brother were searched as part of the investigation. KKTV reported that a judge reduced Cotter's bond at a hearing on June 26. Neither fact answers how many other operators are positioned the way Cotter was, or whether two inspectors can reach them.

*Sources: Pueblo Chieftain, "Has Brian Cotter been arrested? Have Davis Mortuary bodies been ID'd? Here's what we know," June 2026; The Colorado Sun, "Former Pueblo County coroner, brother each facing 152 felony charges after funeral home investigation," June 26, 2026; Colorado Public Radio, "Former Davis Mortuary owners arrested and charged in Pueblo," June 25, 2026; Associated Press, "Brothers are accused of mishandling remains of two dozen people at Colorado funeral home" and "Inspectors find numerous decomposing bodies behind hidden door at Colorado funeral home," June 2026; New York Post, "Colorado funeral home investigated after 20 bodies found decomposing, some for over a decade, behind hidden door," June 2026; KUSA/9News, "Davis Mortuary owners face more than 125 charges after decomposing bodies found during inspection," June 25, 2026; Pueblo Chieftain, "Inspection that found decomposing bodies in Pueblo mortuary was 1st under new Colorado law," June 2026; KKTV, "Judge reduces bond for former Pueblo County Coroner and Davis Mortuary co-owner," June 26, 2026, and coverage that all Colorado funeral directors had under a year to get licensed, 2025; Denver7, "They're very busy: Two new funeral home inspectors are a first for Colorado," "Polis signs legislation to better regulate Colorado's funeral home industry," and "Homes of Pueblo county coroner, brother searched in Davis Mortuary criminal investigation," 2024 to 2026; The Guardian and PBS NewsHour, Carie Hallford sentenced to 30 years, Return to Nature Funeral Home, April 24, 2026; Colorado Newsline, "Colorado bill would require licenses for funeral service professionals," 2024; The Colorado Sun, "Colorado governor signs bills regulating funeral homes after discovery of 190 rotting bodies," 2024.*