COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The owners of a Colorado funeral home accused of piling 190 bodies inside a room-temperature building and giving the grieving relatives fake ashes pleaded guilty Friday to corpse abuse as aggrieved families looked on in court.
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Jon and Carie Hallford, who own the Return to Nature Funeral Home, began storing bodies in a decrepit building near Colorado Springs as far back as 2019 and gave families dry concrete in place of cremated remains, according to the charges. The grim discovery last year upended families’ grieving processes.
Plea deals reached between the defendants and prosecutors call for Jon Hallford to receive a 20-year prison sentence and Carie Hallford to receive 15 to 20 years in prison.
Over the years, the Hallfords spent extravagantly, prosecutors say. They used customers’ money and nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds to buy laser body sculpting, fancy cars, trips to Las Vegas and Florida, $31,000 in cryptocurrency and other luxury items, according to court records.
Even as the couple lived large, prosecutors said the bodies at their funeral home were decomposing.
“The bodies were laying on the ground, stacked on shelves, left on gurneys, stacked on top of each other or just piled in rooms,” prosecutor Rachael Powell said. She said the family members of the bodies that were discovered “have been intensely and forever outraged.”
The Hallfords each pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse for the bodies found decaying and two instances of the wrong bodies being buried.
The also agreed to pay restitution, with the amount yet to be determined. Additional charges of theft, forgery and money laundering would be dismissed under the agreements.
Sentencing was set for April 18.
Six people with objections to the plea agreements had asked prior to Friday’s hearing to address the court. They considered the length of the sentences under the plea deal insufficient given the Hallfords’ conduct, prosecutors said.
Judge Eric Bentley said they would get a chance to speak prior to the sentencings. If the judge rejects the plea agreement, the Hallfords would be able to withdraw their guilty pleas and go to trial.
Last month, the Hallfords pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in an agreement in which they acknowledged defrauding customers and the federal government.
Jon Hallford is represented by the public defenders office, which does not comment on cases. Carie Hallford’s attorney, Michael Stuzynski, declined to comment.
Over four years, customers of Return to Nature spread what they thought were their loves ones’ ashes in meaningful locations, sometimes a plane’s flight away. Others carried their urns on cross-country road trips or held them tight at home.
The bodies, which prosecutors say were improperly stored, were discovered last year when neighbours reported a stench coming from a building in the small town of Penrose, southwest of Colorado Springs.
Authorities found bodies stacked atop each other, some swarming with insects. Among them were remains too decayed for visual identification. The building was so toxic that responders had to wear hazmat gear and could remain inside only for brief periods.
The discovery of the bodies at Return to Nature prompted state legislators to strengthen what had been among the laxest funeral home regulations in the country. Unlike most states, Colorado didn’t require routine inspections of funeral homes or credentials for the businesses’ operators.
This year, lawmakers brought Colorado’s regulations up to par with most other states, largely with support from the funeral home industry.