Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 30 years in decomposing bodies case

Carie Hallford, 48, was also sentenced to 18 years in prison earlier this month after pleading guilty to a federal fraud charge related to the scandal.

Hallford, who operated the Return to Nature funeral home in the Colorado Springs area with her then husband, Jon Hallford, defrauded dozens of grieving families by promising proper funerary services only to leave their relative’s remains to decay in a neglected building. The Hallfords collected over $130,000 for funeral services, often returning urns filled with concrete mix rather than ashes to families.

The Hallfords’ crimes, which were first discovered in 2023 after authorities noticed a foul odor emanating from their building, prompted international media coverage and a crackdown on Colorado’s loosely regulated funeral industry. The state has since passed laws mandating routine inspections of funeral homes, which in one case led to the discovery of 24 decomposing bodies being held at another business.

Jon Hallford also plead guilty to his role in the operation, and in February, was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Hallford’s sentence displeased a group of the victims’ family members, who protested against the plea agreement and had called for the case to go to trial with a punishment of 191 years in jail – one for every instance of human remains recovered.

The Hallfords also pleaded guilty to defrauding the Small Business Administration through applying for Covid relief funds with false information. The couple received $882,300 in loans from the SBA, which prosecutors alleged they spent on luxury goods and travel.

“Jon Hallford’s criminal fraud was a vehicle to exploit grieving families so he could give himself a lavish life with luxury cars and expensive vacations,” US attorney Peter McNeilly said in a statement last year.

Carie Hallford expressed remorse and asked for leniency in courtroom appearances, stating that she was afraid of Jon and in an abusive marriage. Carie Hallford’s lawyer, meanwhile, claimed that at times Jon threatened to kill himself and Carie. She filed for divorce last year, according to local media. A lawyer for Jon Hallford declined to comment on the abuse allegations to the Associated Press.

Carie Hallford dealt with customers and handled much of the funeral home’s financials, prosecutors said, while Jon Hallford dealt with disposing of the remains. Carie Hallford previously claimed she had not personally visited the building where the bodies were being kept in over a year prior to when law enforcement discovered the facility.

“I did know of the conditions,” she said in 2024. “I knew enough that I knew how bad it was and chose to do nothing about it or prevent it and just allowed it to continue.”

A group of Colorado families affected by the state’s funeral home abuse scandals formed the non-profit Colorado Remembers in recent years, with the goal of providing support for victims. In March, over a dozen families gathered for a memorial in Denver to project the faces of their loved ones on the city’s clock tower.