Pueblo County Coroner Cancels Halloween Party Amid Rotting Corpse Controversy

Why go to the rich neighborhoods for trick-or-treating when you can go to the morgue instead?

Yesterday, October 16, the Pueblo County Coroner’s Office announced it was throwing a Halloween party on October 31, hoping to provide a “safe and sweet Halloween celebration” for the community.

Kinda weird, but okay. The local coroner isn’t the first place I’d take children on Halloween, but it’s hard to hate on someone wanting to bring a little joy and candy to children in a supervised setting. Some murder-fetishizing influencers or podcast hosts would be down, and it’s still way less creepy than whatever’s going on at the evangelical church. Well done, Coroner’s Office.

But parties are all about expectations. And the Pueblo County Coroner’s Office probably should have expected raised eyebrows while announcing a public Halloween party less than two months after the office was at the center of a nationally infamous controversy involving hidden and decomposing bodies.

In late August, Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter was busted for allegedly stuffing well over a dozen decomposing bodies and cremains behind a hidden door at a mortuary he owns in Pueblo. The case is still under investigation, but Cotter quickly resigned after pressure from local authorities and Governor Jared Polis. According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the total number of bodies found at the mortuary is still “unknown,” but some of them could have been there as long as fifteen years, while next-of-kin may have received fake cremains.

On October 17, Cotter’s Davis Mortuary and Davis Crematory permanently relinquished their registrations to operate as a funeral home establishment and crematory in Colorado; according to the Department of Regulatory Agencies, this has the same effect as a revocation. As part of the relinquishment, Cotter agreed to not apply for registration or licensure of any kind with the Colorado Office of Funeral and Mortuary Science Services in the future.

This mess was the latest in a long string of malpractice situations at Colorado mortuaries and funeral homes. Here are a few examples to go with your morning cereal:

From 2010 to 2018, the operators of a Montrose funeral home were arrested for illegally selling hundreds of bodies or body parts for research purposes without the knowledge of the victims’ families. In 2020, a rotting corpse and unlabeled cremains were discovered in facilities in Leadville and Gypsum owned by Kent Funeral Homes. In October 2023, the decaying remains of nearly 200 people were found improperly stored at the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, leading to charges for the facility’s owners. In February 2024, the corpse of a 63-year-old woman was discovered inside of a hearse at the Denver home of funeral parlor owner Miles Harford. The cremated remains of around thirty people were also found on the property.

Until last year, Colorado was the only state in the country that did not mandate any license or certification for funeral directors. But Cotter was an elected official of Pueblo County for over ten years on top of owning a funeral home. And even though he’s no longer at the office and no other employees with the Pueblo County Coroner’s Office have been charged, people don’t forget…especially in less than two months.

Comments in a now-deleted social media post announcing the Halloween party called out the Coroner’s Office for being tone-deaf and out of touch. By around 9 p.m. last night, the flier had been taken down from the Pueblo County Facebook page, and a written statement from Dr. Greg Grahek, the current Pueblo County Coroner, had been posted.

According to Grahek, the Coroner’s Office has actually held Halloween parties before, and didn’t mean to cause any discomfort with the recent announcement.

“The Coroner’s Office recently announced plans to host a community Halloween ‘Trick or-Treat’ event. Our intent was simply to provide a safe, family-friendly opportunity for children and families to enjoy the holiday together, as we had provided in the past,” it noted “It has become clear, however, that the event was not well received by some members of the community. We recognize and respect those concerns, and as such, we have decided to cancel the event.

“We sincerely apologize for any discomfort or misunderstanding this may have caused. Our office remains committed to serving the public with professionalism, transparency, and respect under the new coroner, and we appreciate the community’s continued engagement and feedback,” the Coroner’s statement reads.

Does anyone else feel bad now?