Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 30 years in decomposing bodies case | Colorado
The co-owner of a Colorado funeral home was sentenced to 30 years in prison in state court Friday for his role in a corpse exploitation scheme that involved hiding approximately 200 decomposing corpses.
Carie Hallford, 48, was also sentenced to 18 years in prison earlier this month after pleading guilty to federal fraud charges related to the scandal.
Hallford, who ran the Back to Nature funeral home in the Colorado Springs area with her then-husband, Jon Hallford, defrauded dozens of grieving families by promising affordable funeral services only to leave their relatives’ remains to rot in a neglected building. The Hallfords raised over $130,000 for funeral services, often returning urns filled with concrete mix instead of ashes to families.
The Hallford family’s crimes first came to light in 2023 after authorities noticed a foul odor emanating from their building, prompting international media coverage and a crackdown on Colorado’s loosely regulated funeral industry. Since then, the state has passed laws requiring routine inspections of funeral homes; This is in one case, Discovery of 24 rotting corpses is kept at another workplace.
Jon Hallford also admitted his role in the operation and He was sentenced in February Up to 40 years in prison. Hallford’s sentence angered a group of victim family members who protested the plea deal and called for the case to be tried with a sentence of 191 years in prison, one for each sample of human remains found.
Hallfords also pleaded guilty Defrauding the Small Business Administration by applying for Covid relief funds with false information. The couple received an $882,300 loan from the SBA, which prosecutors allege they spent on luxury goods and travel.
“Jon Hallford’s criminal fraud was a means of exploiting grieving families to provide himself with a lavish life of luxury cars and expensive holidays,” US attorney Peter McNeilly said in a statement last year.
Carie Hallford expressed remorse and pleaded for leniency as she appeared in the courtroom, stating that she was afraid of Jon and an abusive marriage. Meanwhile, Carie Hallford’s lawyer claimed that Jon occasionally threatened to kill her and Carie. He filed for divorce last year According to local media. Jon Hallford’s lawyer Refused to comment on abuse allegations to the Associated Press.
Carie Hallford handled clients and handled most of the funeral home’s finances, while Jon Hallford handled the disposal of remains, prosecutors said. Carie Hallford previously claimed that she had not personally visited the building where the bodies were kept, more than a year before law enforcement discovered the facility.
“I knew the conditions,” he said in 2024. “I knew enough to know how bad it was and I chose not to do anything about it or prevent it and just let it continue.”
A group of Colorado families affected by the state’s funeral home abuse scandals founded the nonprofit Colorado Remembers in recent years to provide support to victims. finished in march a dozen families gathered for a memorial in Denver where loved ones’ faces would be projected onto the city’s clock tower.
