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Las Vegas area authorities are scratching their heads trying to figure out why dozens of piles of cremated human remains were found on a dirt road outside of Searchlight, Nevada. An investigation by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is currently underway, but so far it has yielded little in the way of answers other than that the piles of ashes are in fact human remains.
8 News Now reports that more than 100 piles of cremated human remains were discovered by a person who has asked to remain anonymous. Found among the piles of ashes were some zip ties and remnants of an urn.
“You can see it best from the air,” a reporter for 8 News Now said in a report from the scene. “Each dot representing a human being who someone left here.”
Spreading ashes on federal land is not a crime, but according to the Bureau of Land Management website, “inquiries from individuals and families to scatter cremated remains should be handled on a case-by-case basis.”
“Cremated remains are not considered a hazardous substance,” states the Bureau of Land Management. “However, the quantity of material associated with commercial distribution of cremated remains could preclude other land uses and may require designation and regulation of land as a functioning cemetery. This could require disposal of parcels of public land under appropriate authorities because the BLM does not manage functioning cemeteries.”
However, Nevada law requires funeral operators protect the dignity of all remains, which means that if these cremated human remains were dumped there by a business, it is a crime. The Bureau of Land Management is coordinating its investigation with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
The town of Searchlight, which has a population of less than 400 people, has no dedicated funeral homes.
Earlier this week, a crematorium in Las Vegas was shut down after 146 bodies were discovered and recovered after the funeral home failed to cremate them promptly. According to KVVU News, a neighbor to the funeral home said it started to smell for the past three to five months.
It turned out that, according to what authorities told the neighbor, “they had all these bodies that were stacked up against our common wall.” One of the bodies that was recovered had been deceased for 252 days.