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The owners of a Colorado funeral home who let nearly 190 bodies rot in the building at room temperature and gave grieving families fake ashes pleaded guilty Friday to corpse abuse.
Jon and Carie Hallford, who own Return to Nature Funeral Home, began storing bodies in a dilapidated building near Colorado Springs back in 2019 and gave families dry concrete instead of cremated remains, according to the charges.
A dark revelation last year turned the family’s grieving process on its head.
The plea agreements reached between the defendants and prosecutors call for Jon Hallford to receive 20 years in prison 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 contouring, 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 widely, prosecutors said the bodies were decomposing at their funeral home.
“Bodies were lying on the ground, stacked on shelves, left on carts, stacked on top of each other or just stacked in rooms,” said prosecutor Rachael Powell.
She said family members of the bodies that were discovered “were intensely and forever bitter.”
Each of the Hallfords pleaded guilty to 191 counts of abuse of corpses for the 189 bodies that were found decomposing and two cases of the wrong burials.
They also agreed to pay compensation, the amount to be determined.
Additional charges of theft, forgery and money laundering would be dismissed under the agreements.
Crystina Page’s son, David, died in 2019, and his body languished in the funeral home building until last year.
“For four years he lay in the corner of a malfunctioning refrigerator, kicked out of his bag with rats and maggots eating his face,” Page said outside the courtroom after the hearing.
“Every moment I think about my son, I have to think about Jon and Carie, and that doesn’t go away.”
The sentencing is scheduled for April 18.
Six people with objections to the plea agreements asked to address the court before Friday’s hearing.
They felt the length of the sentences under the plea agreement was insufficient given the Hallfords’ behavior, prosecutors said.
Judge Eric Bentley said he would get a chance to speak before sentencing.
If the judge rejects the plea deal, the Hallfords could withdraw their plea and go to trial.
At the end of Friday’s hearing, Bentley revoked the bail that allowed Carrie Hallford to remain free while the case was pending.
In the courtroom, they handcuffed her while family members of the deceased applauded.
Jon Hallford was already in custody, and for the hearing he was wearing an orange jumpsuit with handcuffs on his hands.
Last month, the Hallfords pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in an agreement in which they admitted defrauding clients and the federal government.
Jon Hallford is represented by the public defender’s office, which does not comment on cases. Carie Hallford’s attorney, Michael Stuzynski, declined to comment.
Over the course of four years, Back to Nature clients spread what they thought were the ashes of their loved ones in significant locations, sometimes an airplane flight away.
Others took their urns on trips around the country or kept them firmly at home.
The bodies, which prosecutors say were improperly stored, were discovered last year when neighbors reported a stench coming from the building in the town of Penrose, southwest of Colorado Springs.
Authorities found bodies stacked on top of each other, some swarming with insects. Among them were remains that were too decomposed for visual identification.
The building was so toxic that rescuers had to wear protective gear and could only stay inside for a short time.
The discovery of the body at Return to Nature prompted state lawmakers to strengthen what were among the laxest funeral home regulations in the country.
Unlike most states, Colorado did not require routine funeral home inspections or credentialing for business operators.
This year, lawmakers brought Colorado’s regulations on par with those of most other states, largely with the support of the funeral home industry.
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