Jon and Carie Hallford, owners of the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado, admitted to charges of corpse abuse in court on Friday. The couple was accused of storing 190 bodies in a non-refrigerated building and providing grieving families with counterfeit ashes. The Hallfords reportedly began this practice in 2019, substituting cremated remains with dry concrete, causing significant distress to the affected families when the truth was revealed last year.
The Hallfords were also accused of extravagant spending, funded by their customers’ payments and nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds. Court records indicate that the couple used the money to purchase luxury items such as laser body sculpting, high-end vehicles, trips to Las Vegas and Florida, $31,000 in cryptocurrency, among other things.
The couple pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges last month, acknowledging that they had defrauded their customers and the federal government. They face over 200 charges in state court, including corpse abuse, theft, forgery, and money laundering.
For four years, customers of Return to Nature scattered what they believed to be the ashes of their loved ones in significant locations, carried their urns on cross-country trips, or kept them at home. The improperly stored bodies were discovered last year when neighbors reported a foul smell emanating from a building in Penrose, a small town southwest of Colorado Springs.
Authorities found the bodies stacked on top of each other, some infested with insects. Some remains were so decomposed that visual identification was impossible. The building’s toxicity required responders to wear hazmat suits and limit their time inside.
The shocking discovery at Return to Nature led to a strengthening of funeral home regulations in Colorado, which had previously been among the most lenient in the country. Unlike most states, Colorado did not mandate routine inspections of funeral homes or require credentials for operators. This year, lawmakers brought Colorado’s regulations in line with most other states, largely with support from the funeral home industry.