What Was the Return to Nature Funeral Home?

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AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File

A suspension letter from the Colorado Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration dated Oct. 5, 2023, and posted by the noted that Jon had acknowledged a "problem" at the facility when contacted by the office's director on Oct. 4 and said he'd been doing taxidermy on the premises.

The letter noted that the facility was registered up until November 2022 and accused Jon of trying to conceal the improper storage of corpses.

In June 2023, per the Denver Post, an El Paso County judge entered a $21,000 judgment against Return to Nature for failure to pay another business for cremation services.

The funeral home still issued death certificates through August 2023, FBI Special Agent Andrew Cohen stated in a Nov. 7, 2023, affidavit detailing probable cause for Jon's arrest. He also stated in the affidavit that there was no record of state regulators ever inspecting the Penrose facility during its period of operation.

"We're the laughing stock," Blanca Eberhardt, a mortician who works with the state's emergency preparedness team, said on ID's The Curious Case of...The Funeral Home of Horrors. She called it a running joke that "if you can't pass your boards or [you] lose your license in another state, move to Colorado."