The married co-owners of Colorado’s Return to Nature Funeral Home, once known for its environmentally friendly burials and cremations, have pleaded guilty to corpse abuse crimes after nearly 200 improperly stored and decomposing bodies were discovered at their facilities.
Jon and Carie Hallford had each been hit with 191 counts of corpse abuse for the bodies found decaying and two times where the wrong bodies were buried. Additional charges of forgery, theft and money laundering will be dismissed as part of their plea agreement.
Authorities initially launched their investigation into the business back in October 2023, after residents complained of a foul smell emanating from the funeral home in Penrose, located some 30 miles south of Colorado Springs.
A subsequent search of the maggot and fly-infested funeral home turned up 190 bodies — among them the remains of people who died as far back as 2019 The Hallfords were arrested last November.
“The bodies were contained in disposable body bags … partially wrapped in sheets, wrapped in plastic garbage bags and duct tape, or exposed with no covering at all,” prosecutor Rachael Powell said. “Some were even stuffed into plastic totes.”
Following the grisly discovery, authorities pieced together a scheme in which the couple had been defrauding customers who believed their loved ones would be buried or cremated, according to court documents.
They previously admitted to collecting more than $130,000 over a four-year time period without providing their promised services. In some cases, they gave families urns of dry concrete mix rather than their loved ones’ cremated remains.
On Friday, a judge accepted both Jon and Carie Hallford’s guilty pleas, entered as part of a deal with the prosecution. They each face up to 20 years in prison and are scheduled to be sentenced in April.
“Obviously this case has been a huge, emotional struggle for all of the families that are present,” Allen said outside the El Paso County courthouse. “The impact on these family members has been immense.”
Return to Nature Funeral home first opened some seven years ago with the promise of providing burials and cremations that are “as natural as possible,” according to its now-defunct website. That means the bodies are not embalmed, and are buried in biodegradable caskets. The site also touted natural cremations without the use of chemicals or unnatural materials.
The Hallfords also confessed to separate charges related to a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Small Business Administration of nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 pandemic relief funds.
They pleaded guilty last month to one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. They’re are slated to be sentenced in March and could face up to 15 years in prison.
With News Wire Services
