Funeral home investigation: former El Paso County Coroner gives context on how identifying remains works
EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) - For more than a week now, federal, state, and local agencies have been working for hours on end trying to understand what led up to more than 115 bodies being left behind at the Return to Nature Funeral home in Penrose.
Before medical examiners could even start the identification process though, the former El Paso County Coroner said law enforcement needed to comb through the scene.
"That's the same kind of thing you do if you have a shooting, you document where the bodies are, each and in the relationships, and then you one-by-one you move them out," said Bux.
Earlier this week, investigators began moving some of those bodies out of the funeral home. KRDO saw large refrigerated trucks transporting those remains to outside agencies such as the El Paso County Coroner's office in Colorado Springs.
However, Bux said the process of identifying deceased individuals is a complex task, not every situation is the same.
"If you got medical records and if you talked to the family, and depending if they had any clothing or personal effects, that might change it and you can make the identity fairly quickly. You may be able to do fingerprints on most of them. I mean, it's just going to depend. And so all of those factors are different for each each case that they're doing," said Bux.
Other sets of remains though may require more in-depth techniques.
"You're going to see if they have teeth. You're going to have X-rays. You may X-ray them all. You scan them from head to toe," said Bux.
For extremely degraded bodies, examiners may need to rely on DNA testing. The various techniques being employed, all add up to a very long process.
"It's a case-by-case basis in it all. It all takes a tremendous amount of time and it takes multiple people to help do it and that and to do it well," said Bux.
Dr. Bux added that while this is a difficult situation for the families involved, they will need to stay patient as examiners across the state work to bring them final closure.
