The federal investigation into who dumped more than 300 piles of human remains in the desert outside Las Vegas continues as a funeral home stepped up Wednesday to recover them.
The investigative team with Nexstar’s KLAS, the 8 News Now Investigators, first reported the discovery of more than 100 piles of cremated remains in August. The person who found the ashes later contacted KLAS and said he stumbled on the piles on July 28 in a desert area outside of Searchlight. Searchlight is a rural community about an hour south of the Las Vegas valley off U.S. 95.
In August, a Bureau of Land Management official confirmed the piles were human cremains and that the department was actively investigating. “Cremains,” the word the official provided, is a word for human cremated remains.
On Wednesday, representatives from Palm Mortuaries and Cemeteries removed approximately 315 piles from the desert. A second area containing more piles was found near the dump site in the 8 News Now Investigators’ original report.
What are generally referred to as “ashes” are pulverized bone, which are left over after a person is cremated.
“I think most of us just felt like, ‘What a shame,’” said Celena DiLullo, the president of Palm Mortuaries and Cemeteries.
Each pile represents a person who lived in the Southern Nevada community. The piles are likely the work of a commercial funeral home business, several sources confirm to KLAS’ 8 News Now Investigators.
DiLullo and other Palm employees moved each pile into a bag and into an individual urn during the recovery effort on Wednesday.
There is no law in Nevada barring a person from scattering ashes on public land. State law requires funeral operators to preserve the “dignity” of any remains in their care. BLM policy allows for a person to scatter cremated remains; however, the policy limits “commercial distribution of cremated remains.” A mass dumping site, like this one, likely violates federal law.
“I don’t know if it was the wishes of these people to be out, so that’s kind of what goes through my mind,” DiLullo said. “If this is not how they would want to be remembered, we would just want to have a place for them to be.”
Palm will place all 315 remains into a crypt at one of its cemeteries so loved ones can find them, DiLullo said. Each pile no longer contained any identifiable information as of Wednesday. In August, some piles contained pieces of zip ties, which crematories use to close bags of ashes. Pieces of a broken urn also littered part of the site.
“I think it’s important to us to make sure that these people are not forgotten and not left,” DiLullo said. “It’s important to our community and our profession that we demonstrate how much we do care about these people.”
The remains are not connected to McDermott’s Funeral Home, which the Nevada Funeral and Cemetery Services Board closed in August.
Several sources have suggested to the 8 News Now Investigators that the remains came from another recently closed funeral home. A representative from that business, which is headquartered out of state, has repeatedly denied any involvement.
Tips can be submitted to the BLM at [email protected]. KLAS Investigator David Charns can be reached at [email protected].
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