Colorado judge rejects plea deal for funeral home owner who warehoused nearly 200 bodies

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (CN) — A Colorado judge on Monday rejected prosecutors’ proposed plea deal of 15 to 20 years for a funeral home owner facing 191 charges of corpse abuse at funeral homes in Colorado Springs and Penrose.

“I find that the sentence negotiated in this case is not consistent with the impact of these crimes on the victims and the community,” said Fourth Judicial District Judge Eric Bentley.

In October 2023, the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office discovered nearly 200 decomposing bodies while investigating a foul odor coming from the funeral home’s facility in Penrose, a town of 3,000 about two hours south of Denver.

Jon and Carie Hallford, who owned Return to Nature Funeral Home in both locations, were arrested the following month on suspicion of abuse of a corpse, theft, money laundering and forgery.

“Jon Hallford could not have carried out his crimes without Carie," said Bentley, who was appointed by former Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper.

“Someone had to do the dirty work, the improper disposal of the bodies, but someone else had to sell the fraud to the public,” Bentley said.

From September 2019 through October 2023, the couple left nearly 200 bodies to rot in a warehouse instead of burying and cremating them as promised to the families of the deceased, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors said Carie Hallford ran the front of the business, interacting with customers and keeping the books, while Jon was responsible for transporting and preparing bodies for cremation or cemetery burial. Charging between $900 and $1,400 for cremations and more for burials, investigators say the Hallfords collected $130,000 over four years.

In exchange for Carie Hallford’s guilty plea, Fourth Judicial District prosecutor Rachel Powell agreed to request a sentence of 15 to 20 years in prison. Powell defended the deal, citing Carie Hallford’s lack of criminal history and the fact the charges she faced are classified as the state’s lowest felony.

“These are the most aggravated facts that could apply to abuse of a corpse. Although the defendant is taking responsibility for her actions, she seeks to justify her prolific, horrific conduct,” Powell said. “The victims have taken the position that no sentence will ever be enough.”

Several victims’ families who testified requested one year for each body, plus one day for each body that was not recovered, adding up to a sentence that would span hundreds of years.

Derrick Johnson, representing one of 16 families to testify before the court, pushed back on the assumption that people who didn’t come to oppose the plea deal accepted it.

“You have to go to the deepest, darkest part of your soul to articulate this, which as men, we know isn’t easy,” said Johnson who hired Return to Nature to cremate his mother.

“We’re not asking for revenge, we’re asking for acknowledgement, for the court to see each human being as they were: mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends, a heartbeat, a legacy,” Johnson said.

Johnson remembered his mother as a maternal figure to the whole neighborhood, always giving everything she had.

Colorado Springs defense attorney Michael Stuzynski urged the judge to accept the plea and bring finality to the case, including Carie Hallford waiving her right to appeal.

“What we’ve negotiated through this plea is a sense of finality and closure,” Stuzynski said.

A federal judge sentenced Jon Hallford to 20 years in prison in June after he pleaded guilty to a single charge of wire fraud. After hearing victim opposition in August, Bentley rejected a similar state plea deal that would have allowed Jon Hallford to serve a concurrent sentence. He is scheduled to go to trial in February.

Carie Hallford initially entered a federal guilty plea but withdrew it after a federal judge declined to limit herself to the requested sentence range.

Following Bentley’s decision on Monday, Hallford changed her plea to not guilty and asked the court to set a trial date for next October.

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