Funeral home owner accused of stashing decaying bodies expected to plead guilty in federal court

A sign covers the broken back window of the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colo., Oct. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

DENVER — A funeral home owner in Colorado accused of storing nearly 190 decomposing bodies in a room-temperature building and defrauding the federal government out of nearly US$900,000 is expected to plead guilty in federal court, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

Carie Hallford, who ran Return to Nature Funeral Home with her husband Jon Hallford, allegedly duped the Small Business Administration out of almost $900,000 in pandemic-era relief aid and cheated customers who had paid for cremations the Hallfords never performed.

Instead, the Hallfords are accused of spending the aid and customers’ payments on lavish goods — luxury cars, cryptocurrency and items from stores like Gucci — all while stashing the bodies and sending fake ashes to the families.

The Hallfords were charged with 15 fraud counts last year in federal court, where Jon Hallford already pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was sentenced to 20 years in prison last month.

Carie Hallford is set to change her plea in federal court from not guilty in early August, and is expected to plead guilty, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado.

Hallford’s attorney, Robert Charles Melihercik, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a separate case in state court, Jon and Carie Hallford are both charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse for allegedly stashing the bodies between 2019 and 2023 and burying the wrong body in two instances.

The building in Penrose, about a two-hour drive south of Denver, was searched in 2023. Officials discovered bodies stacked atop each other, swarms of bugs and fluid covering the floor. Families were shaken to learn their loved ones’ remains weren’t in the ashes they had spread, but were instead left decaying, some for four years.

Jesse Bedayn, The Associated Press