Funeral Home Gave Families Dried Concrete Instead of Ashes, Held 190 Decaying Bodies: Prosecutors

Just on the federal offenses alone, which were shared by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado in a press release, Jon and Carie Hallford, who owned the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs, are looking at possible sentences of 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, per the indictment.

According to state prosecutors, the couple gave at least some families dry concrete instead of the ashes of their loved ones, per The Associated Press, and on at least two occasions, buried the wrong body. Further, they were allegedly paid more than $130,000 by families for cremations and burial services they never provided.

In their court appearance on Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Neff argued to U.S. Magistrated Judge Scott Varhoalk that the couple should be considered a flight risk, based on previous behavior.

Before their arrest in November 28, "they simply evaporated from the community," allegedly going to Oklahoma in October.

The arrest came after authorities found approximately 190 decaying bodies improperly stored in a bug-infested storage building in the neighboring town of Penrose. Some had been there since 2019. The company's state registration allowing them to operate in Penrose expired in November 2022, per The AP but state regulators reportedly did not investigate at the time.

The AP states that Colorado has some of the most lax rules on funeral homes in the nation with no regular inspections or qualification requirements for their operators.

The newly-unsealed indictment offers more details about what had been going on at the Return to Nature Funeral Home. Already revealed in public records was the fact the Hallfords were deeply in debt, facing eviction and lawsuits and a $21,000 judgment for "a couple hundred" unpaid cremations (many funeral homes utilize outside crematories for cremations).

At the same time, per the indictment and as reported by The Huffington Post, the couple spent $882,300 in pandemic relief funds for their personal use and entertainment, including the purchase of new vehicles, luxury vacations and shopping trips, tuition for their child, dinners, cryptocurrency, and even cosmetic surgery.

The two cars alone, per court testimony, were worth over $120,000. The couple had purchased a GMC Yukon and an infiniti.

"That is just thoroughly disgusting, for a lack of a better term, just reading about all the money that they had," said Tayna Wilson, one alleged victim. She had utilized the funeral home for cremation services for her mother.

Her family flew to Hawai'i to spread her ashes, only later discovering that the ashes weren't her mother. In fact, her mother's body has since been identified as among the 190 found in the Hallford's storage building.

"My mom’s last wish was for her remains to be scattered in a place she loved, not rotting away in a building," Wilson told the AP. "Any peace that we had, thinking that we honored her wishes, you know, was just completely ripped away from us."

Per an Associated Press investigation, it's believed the Hallfords allegedly sent fake ashes and cremation records to families, with death certificates claiming cremations were performed by Wilbert Funeral Services. That company denied performing cremations for the funeral home. Another crematory, Roselawn Funeral Home, has also denied doing listed cremations for Return to Nature.

The Hallford's business failed to pay more than $5,000 in 2022 property taxes at one of its locations, and allegedly told a landlord at one point they would be able to pay their rent once they got paid for work done with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Defense (DOD).

Their business website showed logos for both government agencies, as if to suggest a relationship, but FEMA has said they had no contracts with the funeral home, and a database search for the DOD turns up no contracts there, either, per HuffPo.