Funeral home owner gets 30 years in prison for hiding nearly 200 decomposing bodies

Fremont County coroner Randy Keller, centre, and other authorities survey the area where they plan to put up tents at the Return to Nature Funeral Home where over 100 bodies have been improperly stored, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, in Penrose, Colo. (Parker Seibold/The Gazette via AP)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A former Colorado funeral home owner who helped her ex-husband hide nearly 200 decomposing bodies was sentenced to 30 years in prison Friday in a case that forced the state to clamp down on an industry plagued by repeated scandal and notoriously lax oversight.

Carie Hallford faced between 25 to 35 years in prison under a plea agreement. Some family members of those whose bodies were left to rot had urged Judge Eric Bentley to impose the maximum sentence. But the judge said Carie Hallford made credible claims of being a victim of domestic violence, and he said her ex-husband, Jon Hallford, was the driving force in their relationship.

Bentley added that 30 years was a “staggeringly huge sentence” and appropriate for her crimes.

Jon Hallford was sentenced to 40 years on corpse abuse charges at a February hearing in which he was called a “monster” by relatives of the victims.

Carie Hallford was the public face of Return to Nature, dealing with bereaved customers at the couple’s funeral home in Colorado Springs. Jon Hallford performed much of the physical work, including at a second location south of Colorado Springs in Penrose.

That’s where authorities found bodies piled throughout a bug-infested building after neighbours in 2023 complained about a foul odour in 2023.

Among the remains was the mother of Tanya Wilson, who told Bentley on Friday that the family released what they thought were her ashes from a boat in Hawaii. It turned out her body was lying in toxic fluids on the floor of the Hallfords’ makeshift mortuary. Like other Return to Nature customers, the family received fake ashes instead of the cremated remains they were promised.

They had prepared her mother’s body for meeting her Korean ancestors in the afterlife, Wilson said. To preserve her dignity, they brushed her hair, applied her favourite moisturizer and dressed her in special clothes to preserve the dignity she had in life.

“Carie Hallford annihilated that dignity,” said Wilson.

Carie Hallford apologized prior to being sentenced Friday, saying she was raised to know right from wrong but had lost who she once was.

She fought back tears as she said her marriage had been “a convoluted web of lies, deceit and abuse.” She said “he was not a monster but deserved punishment.

Discovery of corpses spurred first routine inspections

Prosecutors have alleged the Hallfords were motivated by greed. They charged more than US$1,200 per customer, and authorities said the amount they spent on luxury items would have covered the cremation costs many times over.

The case became the most egregious in a string of allegations involving Colorado funeral homes as details emerged about the their lavish spending and their pattern of defrauding customers.

Colorado had been the only state that did not regulate funeral homes before lawmakers adopted recent changes. The Hallfords’ case prompted laws mandating routine inspections and adopting a funeral director licensing system.

State inspectors acting under the new law last year found 24 decomposing bodies and multiple containers of bones behind a hidden door of a funeral home owned by the Pueblo County coroner and his brother. It was the first inspection of that Pueblo mortuary.

Before the bodies were found in Penrose, a mother and daughter who operated a funeral home in the western Colorado city of Montrose were sentenced to federal prison after being accused of selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes. In 2024, authorities in Denver arrested a financially troubled former funeral home owner who kept a body in a hearse for two years at a house where police also found the cremated remains of at least 30 people.

Carie Hallford was `the one who fed the monster’

Carie Hallford asked for leniency in March when she was sentenced in the federal fraud case, saying she was a victim of abuse and manipulation in her marriage.

Her attorney, Michael Stuzynski, said Friday said Carie Hallford initially believed what happened at Return to Nature was entirely her fault. He said she had a “lonely, grey and terrifying existence” and found solace in the interactions she had with the funeral home’s customers.

But Chief Deputy District Attorney Rachael Powell said Jon Hallford couldn’t have carried out the crimes alone. While his actions were gruesome, Powell said, Carie Hallford was the one manipulating clients as she smiled and took their money, knowing she was lying to them.

“She solicited bodies and took the checks. She fed Jon the bodies,” Powell said.

The Associated Press left voicemail and email messages with Jon Hallford’s attorney seeking comment on the abuse allegations.

The Hallfords, who divorced following their arrest, received prison sentences in the related federal fraud case -- 18 years for Carie and 20 years for Jon. They have each appealed.

Plea agreements call for the Hallfords’ state prison sentences to be served concurrently with the federal sentences.

Authorities recovered 189 sets of remains from the Penrose building and said another two bodies were improperly buried. Two of the remains have not yet been identified, but officials continue trying, Fremont County coroner Randy Keller said.

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Matthew Brown And Colleen Slevin, The Associated Press

Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Associated Press journalist Thomas Peipert contributed to this story.