LEFT TO ROT 'LIKE GARBAGE

FOR four years she drove around with an urn filled with what she thought were her beloved boy’s ashes, criss-crossing the country and advocating for police reform.

Crystina Page’s son, David, had been killed by cops at the age of 20 and she spoke out about the need for change, meeting with families in similar situations. Having David’s remains beside her was a powerful symbol – a way of keeping him close as well as a reminder of the brutality that had taken him away.

The last thing she was expecting was a call from the FBI telling her the contents of the urn did not belong to her son. David was still in the funeral home Crystina had used to cremate him – along with nearly 200 other corpses.

The story that’s unfolded has shocked and appalled America. At the heart of the horror is the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado, which was opened by the husband-and-wife team of Jon and Carrie Hallford in 2017.

The couple claimed they offered cremation and “green” burial services – an environmentally sensitive alternative that didn’t involve the use of embalming fluids. But it appears they used very little to preserve the bodies at all.

Joyce Pavetti, who lives near the funeral home, says her husband, Keith, had noticed a foul stench but had assumed it was from a rotting animal. When the smell didn’t go away they called authorities who made the grisly discovery.

Crystina is devastated. “For four years I’ve marched all over this country with this urn believing it to be my son,” she told the Washington Post. “My son has been laying there rotting for four years. How could someone just discard him and leave him to rot like garbage?”

More and more horrifying stories would emerge.