Springs in Colorado. On Friday, the operators of a funeral home in Colorado entered a guilty plea to charges of corpse abuse after allowing almost 190 bodies to deteriorate in a room-temperature facility and providing bereaved relatives with false ashes.
According to the accusations, Jon and Carie Hallford, owners of the Return to Nature Funeral Home, started keeping bodies in a dilapidated structure close to Colorado Springs as early as 2019 and provided families with dry concrete instead of cremated remains. Families’ grieving processes were upended by the sobering finding made last year.
According to plea agreements struck between the defendants and the prosecution, Carie Hallford will receive a term of 15 to 20 years in jail and Jon Hallford will receive a sentence of 20 years.
Prosecutors claim that the Hallfords spent lavishly over the years. According to court documents, they purchased luxury goods including laser body sculpting, expensive cars, trips to Florida and Las Vegas, $31,000 in bitcoin, and other items using consumer money and almost $900,000 in pandemic relief funding.
The Hallfords admitted to cheating the federal government and consumers when they entered a guilty plea to federal fraud charges last month. Prosecutors could ask for the couple to serve up to 15 years in prison under the agreement.
Prosecutors claimed that despite the couple’s lavish lifestyle, the bodies at their funeral home were decaying.
According to prosecutor Rachael Powell, the victims were either piled in rooms, on shelves, on the ground, on gurneys, or stacked on top of one another. According to her, the relatives of the bodies who were found are furious and will always be so.
Due to the remains that were discovered to be decomposing and two cases in which the incorrect bodies were buried, the Hallfords each entered guilty pleas to 191 counts of corpse abuse.
They also committed to making reparations, albeit the precise sum has not yet been decided. The agreements would dismiss additional allegations of money laundering, forgery, and theft.
David, the son of Crystina Page, passed away in 2019, and his remains were kept in the funeral home’s facility until last year.
After the hearing, Page said outside the courtroom, “He was dumped out of his body bag and lay in the corner of an inoperable fridge with rats and maggots eating his face for four years.” I now have to think of Jon and Carie whenever I think of my son, and that won’t stop.
April 18 was the date of sentencing.
Before Friday’s session, six individuals who had concerns about the plea deals had requested to speak to the court. Prosecutors stated that they believed the terms under the plea agreement were too short in light of Hallford’s actions.
Before the sentencings, they will have an opportunity to speak, according to Judge Eric Bentley. The Hallfords could withdraw their guilty pleas and face trial if the court rejects the plea deal.
Although she didn’t visit the facility as frequently as Jon, Carie Hallford told the judge, “I knew how bad it was and chose to do nothing about it.”
Carie Hallford had been free while the case was pending, but Bentley revoked that bail at the end of Friday’s hearing. In the courtroom, she was handcuffed while the deceased’s relatives cheered.
For the hearing, Jon Hallford was already in custody, handcuffed, and wearing an orange jumpsuit.
The Hallfords admitted to cheating the federal government and consumers when they entered a guilty plea to federal fraud charges last month.
The public defender’s office, which represents Jon Hallford, does not comment on cases. Michael Stuzynski, Carie Hallford’s lawyer, chose not to comment.
Over the course of four years, Return to Nature customers scattered what they believed to be the ashes of their loved ones in significant places, often just a plane ride away. Others kept their urns close to home or transported them on cross-country road journeys.
In the small hamlet of Penrose, southwest of Colorado Springs, the bodies were found last year after neighbors complained of a stench emanating from a structure. Prosecutors claim the bodies were unlawfully stored.
Bodies too decomposed for ocular identification were discovered by authorities. Responders could only stay inside the structure for short amounts of time and had to wear hazmat gear because it was so hazardous.
Following the bodies’ discovery at Return to Nature, Texas lawmakers tightened some of the nation’s most permissive funeral home laws. Colorado, in contrast to the majority of states, did not mandate regular funeral home inspections or the operators’ credentials.
With a lot of help from the funeral home sector, lawmakers this year raised Colorado’s regulations to the level of the majority of other states.
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