Families worry funeral homes gave them fake ashes of deceased relatives

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Confused and angry, Elena Ciprian Fuentes showed up at a Juarez police station on Wednesday to find out if the ashes a funeral home gave her last year really belong to her late husband.

“I feel pain because I don’t know if he’s there or not,” the widow of Raul Rodriguez Cisneros said. “I feel anger, I’m disillusioned they would do that. We are filled with doubt. My daughter went in there (the police station) and came out crying.”

Ciprian was among the hundreds of Juarez residents who showed up at a Juarez police station throughout Wednesday demanding answers about the fate of their loved ones.

They all patronized five funeral homes now linked to a building where authorities last week found 383 bodies stacked on top of each other. Some of the bodies may have been kept there for years, some investigators said.

The find led to the arrest of Crematorio Plenitud owner Jose Luis A.C. and his employee Facundo M.R. The business served Luz Divina, Amor Eterno, Del Carmen, Latinoamericana and Deco funeral homes, the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office said.

The two face charges of improper disposal of a cadaver and are being investigated on fraud charges, the AG’s Office said. If convicted, they could get up to 17 years in prison each.

The building functioned as a crematorium at least until 2022, when health inspectors cited them for several violations. The bodies were embalmed and Chihuahua Attorney General Cesar Jauregui said authorities do not suspect foul play.

However, the head of a Juarez human rights organization says the lack of government oversight that led to the accumulation of cadavers at the non-functioning crematorium could have facilitated the disposal of bodies belonging to individuals who have been reported as missing in the past few years.

Juarez is known worldwide as much for its U.S.-run factories called maquiladoras as it is for being a stronghold for rival violent transnational criminal organizations. Last year, the city recorded more than 1,100 murders.

“We stand in solidarity with families who don’t know if their relatives were cremated or if they received the right ashes,” said Silvia Mendez, director of Centro de Derechos Humanos Paso del Norte. “These families already went through the pain of loss. They were in a period of acceptance and now to learn that their loved ones may have been left in those conditions is horrifying. It is a re-victimization” of the families.

She said the hundreds of families lined up outside government offices deserve to know the truth and must hold authorities accountable for the identification of their loved ones.

Maria Hernandez’s mother died last year and she paid a funeral home for the cremation of her body. Now the funeral home is being associated with the non-functioning crematorium, so she wants answers from Juarez authorities.

“The funeral home is not responding. The funeral home does not want to take responsibility,” Hernandez said. “I just want to know if she was cremated. I don’t know where her body ended up or if she was even cremated. I don’t know anything.”

Hernandez said she did not receive any ashes from the funeral home. Many others outside the police station also said they trusted that the funeral home would do what it promised when they signed a contract.

Blanca, who would not give her last name, said she lost her mother three years ago. Not having received her ashes, she now suspects her body could have ended up in the south Juarez crematorium.

“There are many people to blame for this problem, including those responsible for checking that things are working like they should” at funeral homes and crematoriums, she said.