Funeral home owner who stashed nearly 190 decaying bodies sentenced to
20 years in prison
[June 28, 2025]
By JESSE BEDAYN
DENVER (AP) — A Colorado funeral home owner who stashed nearly 190 dead
bodies in a decrepit building and sent grieving families fake ashes
received the maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison on Friday,
for cheating customers and defrauding the federal government out of
nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 aid.
Jon Hallford, owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, pleaded guilty to
conspiracy to commit wire fraud in federal court last year. Separately,
Hallford pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court and
will be sentenced in August.
At Friday's hearing, federal prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence and
Hallford’s attorney asked for 10 years. Judge Nina Wang said that
although the case focused on a single fraud charge, the circumstances
and scale of Hallford's crime and the emotional damage to families
warranted the longer sentence.
“This is not an ordinary fraud case,” she said.
In court before the sentencing, Hallford told the judge that he opened
Return to Nature to make a positive impact in people’s lives, “then
everything got completely out of control, especially me.”
“I am so deeply sorry for my actions,” he said. “I still hate myself for
what I’ve done.”
Hallford and his wife, Carie Hallford, were accused of storing the
bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sending families fake ashes.
Investigators described finding the bodies in 2023 stacked atop each
other throughout a squat, bug-infested building in Penrose, a small town
about a two-hour drive south of Denver.
The morbid discovery revealed to many families that their loved ones
weren't cremated and that the ashes they had spread or cherished were
fake. In two cases, the wrong body was buried, according to court
documents.
Many families said it undid their grieving processes. Some relatives had
nightmares, others have struggled with guilt, and at least one wondered
about their loved one's soul.
Among the victims who spoke during Friday's sentencing was a boy named
Colton Sperry. With his head poking just above the lectern, he told the
judge about his grandmother, who Sperry said was a second mother to him
and died in 2019.
[to top of second column]
|
Crystina Page, right, hugs Beth Mosley, who both had retained the
services of a Colorado funeral home owner who stashed nearly 190
decomposing bodies, after the owner was sentenced to 20 years prison
on federal fraud charges, Friday, June 27, 2025, in Denver. (AP
Photo/David Zalubowski)
Her body languished inside the Return to Nature building for four
years until the discovery, which plunged Sperry into depression. He
said he told his parents at the time, “If I die too, I could meet my
grandma in heaven and talk to her again.”
His parents brought him to the hospital for a mental health check,
which led to therapy and an emotional support dog.
“I miss my grandma so much,” he told the judge through tears.
Federal prosecutors accused both Hallfords of pandemic aid fraud,
siphoning the money and spending it and customer’s payments on a GMC
Yukon and Infiniti worth over $120,000 combined, along with $31,000
in cryptocurrency, luxury items from stores like Gucci and Tiffany &
Co., and even laser body sculpting.
Derrick Johnson told the judge that he traveled 3,000 miles (4,830
kilometers) to testify over how his mother was “thrown into a
festering sea of death.”
“I lie awake wondering, was she naked? Was she stacked on top of
others like lumber?" said Johnson.
“While the bodies rotted in secret, (the Hallfords) lived, they
laughed and they dined,” he added. “My mom's cremation money likely
helped pay for a cocktail, a day at the spa, a first class flight.”
Jon Hallford’s attorney, Laura H. Suelau, asked for a lower sentence
of 10 years in the hearing Friday, saying that Hallford “knows he
was wrong, he admitted he was wrong” and hasn’t offered an excuse.
His sentencing in the state case is scheduled in August.
Asking for a 15 year sentence for Hallford, Assistant U.S. Attorney
Tim Neff described the scene inside the building. Investigators
couldn’t move into some rooms because the bodies were piled so high
and in various states of decay. FBI agents had to put boards down so
they could walk above the fluid, which was later pumped out.
Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial in the federal case in
September, the same month as her next hearing in the state case in
which she’s also charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
