A funeral director in the state of Colorado in the USA has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for fraud, after having hidden the remains of 190 dead people.
Those who turned to the funeral home to have their relatives cremated instead received fake ashes.
The fraud went on for four years and the investigators of the crime described in court how they found dead bodies stacked on top of each other in a dilapidated building filled with vermin in the town of Penrose, a few miles outside Denver.
In court, the funeral director said that he and his wife started the funeral home to help people but "then everything went wrong, and especially me".
I am so incredibly sorry for my actions. I still hate myself for what I have done, he said during the trial.
The director is sentenced for having deceived customers and defrauded the government of around nine million kronor in pandemic support. After the summer, 191 cases of violation of the peace of the grave will also be tried in court.
Corrected: In an earlier version of the text, there were incorrect crime classifications.
