Two Colorado funeral home owners suspected of storing decomposing bodies in a hidden back room of their Pueblo mortuary for over a decade were arrested Thursday morning on hundreds of felony charges, according to state investigators.
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Davis Mortuary owners Chris and Brian Cotter were each arrested on suspicion of 125 counts of abuse of a corpse, a class six felony; nine counts of forgery, a class five felony; nine counts of theft as a class five felony; nine counts of theft as a class six felony; seven counts of theft as a class one misdemeanor and two counts of theft as a class two misdemeanor, Pueblo County District Attorney Kala Beauvais said during a Thursday news conference.
If convicted on all charges and sentenced consecutively, the Cotter brothers could each face up to 255 years in prison and roughly 7.5 years in county jail, according to sentencing ranges given by Beauvais on Thursday.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation began investigating 64-year-old Brian Cotter, who was the Pueblo County coroner at the time, and his brother Chris Cotter, 60, in August, after state inspectors found human remains behind a hidden door during a surprise inspection of the mortuary. That included 24 bodies and several containers of bones, cremains and human tissue.
Brian Cotter stepped down from his position as coroner in late August after dozens of state and local officials called for his resignation.
At least 125 victims were found behind the door, most of them cremains, Beauvais said. As of Thursday, 19 of the 24 bodies discovered had been identified, she said. Abuse charges were filed for each of the remains that investigators were able to confirm were human, even if they were not yet able to identify the victim.
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Several victims’ remains were kept in buckets, CBI Director Armando Saldate said Thursday.
Identifying the bodies has been difficult because of the lack of mortuary records, the poor condition of the remains and degraded DNA, state investigators said in May. The goal was to identify all the bodies before filing charges, Beauvais said, but it’s unclear if investigators will be able to identify the last five victims in the near future.
“We won’t give up on that,” Saldate said.
The two dozen bodies found in the Cotters’ hidden room likely died between 2010 and 2012, but some of the other remains are believed to have been from as recent as 2017, Saldate said.
“We are dedicated to providing as much clarity and closure as possible for the families whose loved ones were entrusted to this funeral home,” Beauvais said during the news conference. “We know that the families, as well as our community, want swift justice. I cannot give an exact timeline; however, a lengthy court process is to be expected.”
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This is a developing story.
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