Mystery as 315 mounds of human remains found in desert

More than 300 piles of human remains have been discovered in a desert just an hour outside of Las Vegas. The shocking discovery was made by a local man near the rural town of Searchlight on July 28. However, investigators have likely been left with an unsolvable mystery as to who the remains belong to, as each pile no longer contains any identifiable information.

According to 8 News Now, some of the piles were found to contain pieces of cable ties, which funeral homes use to close bags of ashes, along with remnants of urns. The remains, crushed bone fragments known as "cremains", were said to have been found spread across a desolate stretch of land in the Nevada Desert.

They were confirmed to be of human origin in August by officials from the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In a new update, on Wednesday (October 29), crews from Palm Mortuaries and Cemeteries removed around 315 piles of cremains from the site, KLAS reported.

Celena DiLullo, president of Palm Mortuaries and Cemeteries, said the remains would be transferred to a cemetery crypt.

"I think it's important to us to make sure that these people are not forgotten and not left," Ms DiLullo told KLAS. "It's important to our community and our profession that we demonstrate how much we care about these people."

The ashes may have been disposed of by a commercial funeral home, early reports suggest. Under Nevada law, individuals are permitted to scatter ashes on public land, and there is no general prohibition against scattering cremated remains. However, BLM regulations forbid the commercial distribution of cremated remains on federal land.

The desert area where the remains were found lies on BLM-managed land.

Several sources told 8 News Now that a recently closed funeral was responsible for the mass disposal.

However, a representative from the unnamed business has since denied these claims and details of the funeral home suspected are yet to be released by authorities.