Funeral home owner learns his fate after defrauding customers and government out of $900K

A Colorado funeral host, who admitted that he had hidden about 190 dead corpses in a worn building and agreed to send false ashes to mourning families, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for wire fraud.

Returning to Nature Funeral House, Jon Hallford, found guilty Deceiving customers and defrauding the federal government from approximately $ 900,000 COVID-19 help.

HE Last year, he was found guilty of conspiring in the federal court to make a wire fraud, but a penalty is still waiting for a penalty in August after being found guilty of 191 Corpse abuse in the state court.

At a hearing on Friday, the Federal prosecutors sought 15 years of imprisonment and Hallford’s lawyer asked for 10 years.

Judge Nina Wang said that although the case focuses on a single fraud accusation, the conditions and scale of Hallford’s crime and emotional damage to families required longer imprisonment.

‘This is not an ordinary fraud case,’ he said.

In the court before the court, Hallford said that the judge had opened a return to nature to create a positive impact on people’s lives, ‘Then everything came out of control completely, especially me.’

“I’m so sorry for my actions,” he said. ‘I still hate myself for what I do.’

The funeral houses promised a more natural burial and offered to bury liquids or metal coffins without mummaling if families did not remain burned.

In the inspectors, in 2023, finding bodies, Denver’s two -hour driving distance of a small town in Penrose, crouching, insect -invading building described together.

Hallford and his wife Carie Hallford were accused of storing bodies between 2019-2023 and sending false ashes to families.

In the inspectors, in 2023, finding bodies, Denver’s two -hour driving distance, a small town in Penrose crouching, insect -invading building was stacked on each other.

The bodies were left to decay at room temperature. It was found after publishing complaints about a ‘smell of dead animals’ covering the area around the funeral house of the neighbors.

Before some bodies were discovered, a wolf had been invaded for years.

The funeral houses promised a more natural burial, and if the families did not continue to be burned, they offered to bury the bodies without mummish liquids or metal coffins.

Relatives will pay $ 1,200 for an environmentally friendly end, which came with the promise of planting a tree in the Colorado National Forest.

Morbid discovery explained that many families are not burned and that the ashes they spread or value are fake. The so -called ashes were claimed to be ‘concrete dust’.

Relatives, they have increased their doubts with the couple, but each time they were ignored or brushed, he said.

The couple’s funeral house promised an environmentally friendly final action for relatives who would pay $ 1,200 for opportunities, including trees sewing in the Colorado National Forest.

Fremont district deputies protect the road to the Nature Funeral House in Penrose, Penrose in October 2023

Fremont County Coroner Randy Keller is seen in 2023 when they find the building where 190 bodies were stored and left to decay

When the retired army officer Tanya Wilson took their ashes, his brother Elliot thought that they were unusual and faced with Carie Hallford.

When he took them to a nearby funeral director, he said to him: ‘I haven’t seen anything that looks like this in the range of how the Crematic ruins typically expect.’

The two families were so suspicious that they mixed the ‘ashes’ with water and found that they were solid.

According to the court documents, the wrong body was buried in two cases.

Many families said they have solved mourning processes. Some relatives had nightmares, others struggled with guilt, and at least one wondered about the soul of their loved ones.

Among the victims speaking in prison on Friday, there was a child named Colton Sperry.

While his head mocked just above the podium, he told the judge about his grandmother, who told him that he was a second mother when he died in 2019.

His body stood in his return to nature for four years until the discovery that diveded Sperry into depression.

Chrystina Page holds back the Heather de Wolf on the right, shouting at Jon Hallford, the owner of the Nature to Nature funeral house, in February 2024, Colorado Springs left with his lawyers after a hearing at Colorado Springs.

At that time he said to his family: ‘If I die, I can meet my grandmother in heaven and talk to him again.’

His family brought him to the hospital for a mental health check that caused the therapy and emotional support dog.

“I miss my grandmother so much,” the judge said with tears.

Federal prosecutors accused both Hallfords of Pandemik Aid Fraud, Siphone the money, and the customer’s GMC Yukon and the customer’s payments, 31,000 dollars of crypto currency, Gucci and Tiffany & Co. Luxury items from stores such as and even the laser body accused of sculpture.

Derrick Johnson, the judge, ‘how to be thrown into an inflamed sea of ​​death’ to express 3,000 miles to express, he said.

‘I wonder, was he lying awake, was he naked? Was it stacked on others like timber? Johnson said.

“While the bodies were rotting secretly (hallfords), they laughed and eaten. ‘

Jon Hallford’s lawyer Laura H. Suelau asked for a 10 -year penalty at the hearing on Friday and did not offer an excuse that Hallford knew that it was wrong, that it was wrong ‘and did not offer an excuse.

In the state case, the penalty is planned to be made in August.

US lawyer Tim Neff, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for Hallford, told the scene in the building.

The inspectors could not move to some rooms because the bodies were very high and stacked in various decay. The FBI agents were forced to lower the boards to the ground so that they could walk on the pumped liquid.

Carie Hallford is planned to be tried in the federal case in September, the same month 191 Corpse is the same as the next hearing in the state case, accused of abuse.