COLORADO SPRINGS – A judge sentenced a Colorado funeral home owner to 40 years in state prison Friday for leaving nearly 200 bodies rotting in a building for years and giving families fake ashes.
Family members told Judge Eric Bentley they have had recurring nightmares about decomposing flesh and maggots since learning what happened to their loved ones. They called defendant Jon Hallford a “monster” and “vile” and had urged the judge to give him the maximum sentence of 50 years.
Hallford apologized before his sentencing and said he would regret his actions for the rest of his life.
His former wife, Carie Hallford, who co-owned the Return to Nature Funeral Home, is due to be sentenced April 24. She faces 25 to 35 years in prison.
During the years they were stashing bodies, the Hallfords spent lavishly, according to court documents. That included purchasing a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti worth over $120,000 combined, along with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, luxury items from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co. and laser body sculpting.
The Hallfords also pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges after prosecutors said they cheated the government out of nearly $900,000 in pandemic-era small business aid. Jon Hallford was sentenced to 20 years in prison in that case, and Carie Hallford’s sentencing is pending.
“Clearly this is a crime motivated by greed,” prosecutor Shelby Crow said. The Hallfords charged more than $1,200 per customer, and the money the couple spent on luxury items would have covered the cost to cremate all of the bodies many times over, Crow said.
Family members of the deceased who spoke during the sentencing recounted recurring nightmares about decomposing flesh and maggots. They called Hallford a “monster” and “vile” and asked for him to receive the maximum sentence.
“I’m a daughter whose mother was treated like yesterday’s trash and dumped in a site left to rot with hundreds of others. I’m heartbroken, and I ask God every day for grace,” said Kelly Mackeen, whose mother's remains were handled by Return to Nature.
As they spoke Jon Hallford sat at a table to their right, wearing orange jail attire and looking directly ahead. The courtroom’s wooden benches were full of relatives of the deceased and also journalists.
The Hallfords stored the bodies in a building in the small town of Penrose, south of Colorado Springs, from 2019 until 2023, when investigators responding to reports of a stench from the building discovered the corpses.
Bodies were found throughout the building, some stacked on top of each other, with swarms of bugs and decomposition fluid covering the floors, investigators said. The remains – including adults, infants and fetuses – were stored at room temperature. Investigators believe the Hallfords gave families dry concrete that mimicked ashes.
The bodies were identified over months with fingerprints, DNA and other methods.
Families learned the ashes they had been given, and then spread or kept at home, weren't actually their loved ones' remains. Many said it undid their grieving process, others had nightmares and struggled with guilt that they let their relatives down.
The funeral home owners also pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges after prosecutors said they cheated the government out of nearly $900,000 in pandemic-era small business aid.
Jon Hallford was sentenced to 20 years in prison in that case. He told the judge he opened Return to Nature to make a positive impact in people’s lives, “then everything got completely out of control, especially me.”
“I still hate myself for what I’ve done,” he said at his sentencing last June.
Carie Hallford's federal sentencing is set for March 16.
Attorneys for the Hallfords did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
One of the recovered bodies was that of a former Army sergeant first class who was thought to have been buried at a veterans’ cemetery, said FBI agent Andrew Cohen.
When investigators exhumed the wooden casket at the cemetery, they found the remains of a person of a different gender inside, he said. The veteran, who was not identified in court, was later given a funeral with full military honors at Pikes Peak National Cemetery, he said.
The corpse abuse revelations spurred changes to Colorado's lax funeral home regulations.
The AP previously reported that the Hallfords missed tax payments, were evicted from one of their properties and were sued for unpaid bills, according to public records and interviews with people who worked with them.
In a rare decision, state District Judge Eric Bentley last year rejected previous plea agreements between the Hallfords and prosecutors that called for up to 20 years in prison. Family members of the deceased said the agreements were too lenient.
