In a plea deal on Monday, the owner of a Colorado funeral company accused of hiding almost 200 decaying bodies in a room-temperature structure acknowledged defrauding the federal government of almost $900,000 and cheating clients.
Carie and Jon Hallford, the owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home, entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to conduct wire fraud in federal court. Although federal prosecutors agreed to request 15 years, Carie Hallford risks a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail.
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The federal lawsuit against both Hallfords focused on two schemes: misleading customers who paid for cremations that the Hallfords never performed and fabricating documents to fool the U.S. Small Business Administration into awarding them financial aid during the pandemic.
The Hallfords are accused of keeping over 200 bodies in a dilapidated structure and delivering clients dry concrete rather than ashes in lieu of cremating them between 2019 and 2023. The Hallfords kept around $130,000 of the money that their clients paid for burial or cremation services.
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Both Hallfords are accused with 191 counts of corpse abuse in a different state court case, including burying the incorrect body twice and allowing others to decay. In the federal case, Jon Hallford has already entered a guilty plea to the 191 charges in addition to a fraud allegation.
In 2023, the body-filled building was found in Penrose, Colorado, which is roughly two hours’ drive south of Denver. It rocked families who were already grieving. Many discovered that the remains of their loved ones were rotting in a structure, some for four years, rather than in the ashes they spread or clung to.
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Investigators discovered swarms of insects and maggots, carcasses piled on top of one another, and so much liquid on the ground that it had to be pumped out.
For four years, the body of Crystina Page’s son David, who passed away in 2019, was kept in an inoperable refrigerator. Attending the hearing, Page expressed disappointment that Hallford will not face charges, as she had thought that this would provide answers regarding the fate of her son and all the other individuals entrusted to their care.
She said, “We still don’t know the truth about what they did to us.”
Last year, Carie Hallford entered a guilty plea in federal court, but the judge turned down the plea. The sentencing hearing for Carie Hallford is set for December.
