Family members of three individuals identified among the decaying bodies found at Davis Mortuary in Pueblo are suing co-owners Brian and Chris Cotter, their businesses, and the Pueblo Masonic Temple Association, which leased space to the brothers for the mortuary and crematory.
Brian Cotter is Pueblo County’s former elected coroner. He resigned in late August.
Neither brother faces criminal charges at this time, and authorities are still investigating after a routine state inspection of the facility in August led to the discovery of two dozen bodies in various stages of decomposition, as well as containers of bones and probable human tissue from an unknown number of bodies. The discovery initiated an investigation by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
A 32-page lawsuit filed last week seeks damages related to the improperly stored bodies, alleging negligence, breach of contract, and fraud, among other claims, resulting in severe emotional distress.
The Masonic Temple and Temple Annex are listed as defendants because as lessors of the property to the Cotter brothers, the organizations “controlled and (were) responsible, in part, for maintaining the mortuary and the crematorium.”
Other details alleged in the suit include:
- One of the plaintiffs is the grandfather of a baby that was discovered in the mortuary in a box with a green ribbon around it. The plaintiff was a childhood friend of the Cotters in Trinidad and, at the time of the baby’s death in 2012, provided landscaping services at the personal homes of Brian and Chris Cotter. The two parties allegedly entered into an agreement for reduced fees for landscape services for a reduction in cost for the transportation and cremation of the baby. The suit outlines Brian Cotter’s affinity for the color green and its relationship to Freemasonry, inferring that Cotter put the baby in the box, wrapped it in a green ribbon, and provided false ashes in an urn to the plaintiff and his family.
- The Cotters were performing cremations before they were licensed to do so.
- Defendants Masonic Temple and Temple Annex have started moving items “that may constitute evidence from the Property, which includes, but not limited to, refrigerators that are purposed for storing cadavers.”
- Brian Cotter has held a number of leadership roles with the Freemasons, “which presumably includes Defendant Masonic Temple and Defendant Temple Annex,” with a temple located in part at the property that included Davis Mortuary.
- The smell of “decaying and rotting human bodies is so unique, powerful, and unmistakable that individuals who frequent the Property where twenty-four corpses and numerous unattached body parts decayed and rotted for over 15 years would have smelled the foul odor.”
The suit alleges that state investigators visited the property and followed a strong odor of decomposition to a closed door.
”Defendant Brian Cotter pleaded with the inspectors not to enter the room behind the subject door.” When they did enter, “the inspectors … uncovered deceased bodies and unattached body parts in various stages of decomposition and improperly stored in the room,” according to the suit.
Brian Cotter had allegedly admitted then that some of the corpses had been there for around 15 years, which the CBI had previously stated, and that he’d given fake cremains to family members.
- Pueblo County’s coroner faces state probe after decaying bodies found hidden at his private practice
- Two dozen bodies, bones and ‘probable human tissue’ recovered from Davis Mortuary in Pueblo in probe of county coroner
- Pueblo County coroner resigns following the discovery of decaying bodies at his private practice
