Funeral home owners accused of storing rotting bodies are expected to plead guilty to COVID-19 fraud

DENVER (AP) — Colorado funeral home owners accused of squandering nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 pandemic relief funds and living lavishly while allegedly hiding 190 decomposing bodies in a building and providing fraud to grieving families Ashes are expected to plead guilty Thursday.

Jon and Carie Hallford, owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home about an hour's drive south of Denver, were charged with 15 federal crimes in connection with defrauding the U.S. government and the funeral home's customers. In addition, there are already over 200 criminal cases pending against her in a court in the US state of Colorado, including for abuse of corpses and forgery of documents.

The Hallfords used pandemic relief and customer payments to purchase a GMC Yukon and Infiniti that were collectively worth over $120,000, laser body sculpting, trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, $31,000 in cryptocurrency and Luxury items at stores including Gucci and Tiffany & Co. Co., according to court documents.

The federal charge could bring up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Jon Hallford is represented by the Federal Public Defender's Office, which does not comment on the cases. Calls and emails to Carie Hallford's attorney in the federal case were not returned, and her attorney in the state case, Michael Stuzynski, declined to comment.

The federal indictment came after the discovery of the 190 bodies last year in an insect-infested Return to Nature building in Penrose, a small town southwest of Colorado Springs. The Hallfords reportedly hid bodies as early as 2019, at times stacking them on top of each other and, in two cases, burying the wrong body, according to court documents.

An investigation by The Associated Press found that the Hallfords likely sent fake ashes and fake cremation records to families who did business with them. Court documents allege that the dust in some bags was dry concrete, not the cremated remains of lost loved ones.

The discovery shocked the relatives of the deceased, who learned that the remains of their family members were not among the ashes that they ceremoniously distributed or held, but were still languishing in a building. The stories prompted Colorado lawmakers to change the state's lax funeral home regulations in 2024, requiring routine inspections of facilities and the issuance of licenses for funeral homes.

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Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.