A Place of Respect: Learn how Colorado Remembers is creating two permanent places to honor victims, preserve their stories, and restore the dignity they were denied.

Introduction

Across Colorado, families have been harmed by failures within the death-care system. Some discovered that their loved ones had been improperly stored, mishandled, misidentified, sold, or never received the disposition their families were promised. Others are still living with questions that may never be fully answered.

Colorado Remembers is creating two permanent locations to ensure those victims—and what happened to them—are never forgotten.

Why Colorado Remembers Exists

The cases that brought our families together exposed serious failures in oversight, identification, chain of custody, disposition, and accountability. Colorado has made significant reforms since these cases came to light, but legislation cannot undo what happened to the victims or restore what their families lost.

Our work now includes preserving that history, honoring those who were harmed, and helping ensure the lessons learned at such an extraordinary human cost are carried forward.

Two Locations, One Purpose

The Colorado Remembers project now includes two distinct but connected locations:

• Colorado Remembers Educational Center at Calhan: A public-facing space dedicated to education, advocacy, remembrance, and the history of Colorado’s death-care failures and the reforms that followed. Visitors will be able to learn about the victims, families, cases, advocates, and changes that grew from these tragedies.

• Colorado Remembers Memorial Preserve at MontemAra: A peaceful and permanent place dedicated to the dead. The preserve will honor victims individually and collectively and provide a respectful resting place for cremated remains that cannot be identified, verified, or otherwise appropriately laid to rest.

Restoring Dignity

For many families, the dignity traditionally associated with death and final disposition was taken away. We cannot change what happened, but we can choose what happens next.

These spaces will allow victims to be remembered as people rather than case numbers, evidence, or headlines. Their names, stories, and significance will remain long after court proceedings and news coverage have ended.

Education and Awareness

Calhan will ensure the public understands not only what happened, but why it matters. Through exhibits, documents, media, memorial elements, and educational materials, Colorado Remembers will preserve the history of these cases and the advocacy that followed.

Education is part of prevention. When people understand how these failures occurred, they are better equipped to recognize why transparency, accountability, identification, and meaningful oversight remain important.

A Permanent Place for Remembrance

MontemAra serves a different need.

It is a place where grief, memory, and justice are allowed to remain. It will provide a permanent physical home for remembrance and a dignified resting place for remains that might otherwise continue to sit unclaimed, unidentified, or without an appropriate place of rest.

A Legacy of Change

Colorado Remembers began with families who endured circumstances that should never have happened. What grows from those experiences will be more than a memorial.

Calhan will preserve the lessons.

MontemAra will preserve the memory.

Together, they will honor the dead, acknowledge the living, educate future generations, and ensure that the victims whose experiences helped change Colorado are never forgotten.

Colorado Remembers Educational Center at Calhan and Colorado Remembers Memorial Preserve at MontemAra are currently in development. Follow Colorado Remembers for project updates and opportunities to become involved.