Woman believes her missing father may be one of 2 bodies found in same grave

LAS ANIMAS COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV/Gray News) - A woman in Colorado is questioning whether or not her missing father has finally been found after two bodies were discovered in the same grave at a cemetery.

Morgan Shier’s father David Shier has been missing since February 2022. Shier said her father went missing about a mile and a half from the Starkville Cemetery.

An investigation has been opened involving the cemetery and Las Animas County Coroner Dominic Verquer who authorities believe allowed bodies to be improperly buried, such as multiple bodies being placed in the same grave, without the cemetery’s owner knowing and without proper paperwork.

Starkville Cemetery owner Carl Mestas said he was made aware of the issue when a woman reached out to him asking to visit the graver of her father, Fredrick Huff, a grave he was unaware existed. S

he ordered an exhumation of her father’s grave that was conducted in September and Mestas, along with funeral home owner Thomas Murphy and several witnesses discovered at least two bodies had been buried in his grave.

Shier believes that one of the bodies found may be her father.

“I’m really hoping that someone will see this as there’s a possibility that that’s my father ... that’s our father in that grave,” she said.

Shier said she learned about the situation about a month after the bodies were located when Murphy talked about it with his wife at the place where Shier’s sister works.

“You know, there’s just a mixed bag of emotions,” Shier said about when her family learned about the discovery. “I certainly felt anger ... all the things that, you know, initially came up at the beginning of the case came flooding back to me.”

According to records provided to those involved by Verquer, the bodies buried in the cemetery by his office date back to 2019. The man, Fredrick Marshall, who exhumed Huff’s body said that may not be the case.

“Without opening up the bag, I can’t be 100% sure, but from what I could feel, what I could touch … that body is recent,” Marshall, who is also the funeral director and owner of Marshall’s Mortuary and Cremation Services, said.

Marshall said he has conducted 10 to 20 exhumations a year for more than 20 years. He reported the second body in the grave did not appear to have decayed enough to have been buried four years ago.

Marshall said it’s likely it could be Shier’s father, but there’s no way to know unless the body can be exhumed and DNA tested, something that can’t be done without official approval.

As for Mestas and others involved, they’ve said their main goal is finding out just how many people have been buried similarly, and finding out who those people are.

Mestas said learned Verquer had gone through his cousin to get the body buried on his property, and Huff wasn’t the only body he’d buried in Starkville.

Mestas and Murphy have started looking into some of the coroner’s burials at other cemeteries and they’ve found burial paperwork Murphy said was not properly filled out. Mestas said Verquer told him he didn’t even have paperwork to provide for the burials at Starkville.

“This is Pandora’s box as we’re finding out,” Murphy said. “The more we look, the more we seem to find.”

Murphy said he found it concerning that the coroner’s office operating as a funeral home concerning these burials. He also said there is a potential that more bodies could be buried at Mestas’s cemetery.

The Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office reported that they are investigating these concerns and have called in the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to help.

With the announcement of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s involvement in the investigation, although still in the early stages, Marshall said he’s felt some relief.

“If it’s her dad, thank goodness,” Marshall said. “If it’s not, then who is it? So that they can be put to rest.”

Shier shared a similar sentiment.

“Even if this is not my father, I still feel like it’s a very worthwhile endeavor to pursue,” she said. “These people deserve to have their loved ones contacted and to know where they are, so they don’t have to struggle like Mr. Huff’s daughter did.”

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