Nearly 400 Neglected Corpses Discovered by Authorities at Crematorium

Police have arrested two people after authorities made a shocking discovery at a private crematorium in Mexico.

After receiving a report on Thursday, June 26, authorities later found 383 embalmed bodies strewn about the building in Ciudad Juárez and piled up in all of the rooms, according to a Tuesday, July 1, release from the state of Chihuahua prosecutor’s office.

A communications coordinator for the office, Eloy Garcia, told AFP that the bodies were “just thrown like that, indiscriminately, one on top of the other, on the floor,” per CBS News.

Chihuahua State Attorney General César Jáuregui said in the July 1 release that the corpses were found inside the Plenitud crematorium, which serviced a handful of local funeral homes.

He added the owner and an employee were charged with crimes related to “burial, exhumation, and disrespect for corpses or human remains” and are being held in pretrial detention. A hearing was scheduled for Friday, July 4.

“We will seek the highest possible penalty for those responsible. The actions or inactions of the authorities responsible for overseeing these types of establishments will be investigated,” Jáuregui said in an English translation. “We will conduct a thorough investigation, seeking to minimize the re-victimization of families already experiencing this.”

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His office said in the July 1 release that he has met with families who were worried their relatives could be among the hundreds of bodies found at the site.

“The Judge granted the preventive detention requested by the Public Prosecutor’s Office so that these individuals can continue their proceedings in prison,” Jáuregui said.

“This ensures that they can not only address the economic damage they inflicted on many families, but also determine the terms of reparation for the damages for many of them, who are being revictimized by the pain they had already, in some ways, healed,” he continued.

Javier Sánchez Herrera, Director of Forensic Services and Sciences, said 218 of the bodies are male, 149 are female and 16 are undetermined, according to the prosecutor’s office. He added that some of the bodies came from hospitals with name tags attached.