Colorado funeral home case: man with mother among 189 decaying bodies speaks

Body

Derrick Johnson said the FBI contacted him after investigators found 189 decaying bodies stored at a Colorado funeral home that, Johnson believed, had cremated his mother and provided him the ashes for a final ceremony. The case, Johnson said, turned his grieving process into a long account of what he described as repeated deceptions tied to the “Return to Nature” business in Colorado Springs.

Johnson recounted that on Feb. 4, 2024, while he was teaching an eighth-grade gym class, a woman called and asked whether he was the son of Ellen Lopes, according to an interview with The Associated Press. Johnson said the caller told him an FBI agent would fly out to explain an incident and then asked whether he used Return to Nature for a funeral home, adding that he should “probably google them,” Johnson said.

In the following weeks, Johnson said two FBI agents visited him and confirmed his mother’s body was among 189 bodies that Return to Nature’s owners, Jon and Carie Hallford, had stashed in a Colorado building between 2019 and Oct. 4, 2023, investigators said. Authorities described it as one of the largest discoveries of decaying bodies at a funeral home in the United States, and prosecutors said the Hallfords also mishandled funeral arrangements involving grieving families across multiple cases.

Johnson said he called the funeral home in early February 2023, the week his mother died, and that Carie Hallford assured him she would take good care of his mother. Days later, Johnson said, he received a blue box containing a zip-tied plastic bag of gray powder that Hallford told him were his mother’s ashes, and Johnson described setting the box up at a memorial service with flowers and photos.

Johnson told the Associated Press that he later learned the contents were not his mother’s remains, saying: “She lied to me over the phone. She lied to me through email. She lied to me in person.” He said he had then conducted a ceremony in which he sprinkled rose petals and a preacher said: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” after which he said the discovery left him unable to process his grief normally.

The story of how authorities uncovered the facility began with complaints and an investigation that grew after regulators sought access, the Associated Press reported. Investigators described a search process that followed reports of an unusual odor and attempts to inspect a building labeled “Return to Nature Funeral Home” in Penrose, outside Colorado Springs, where officials later said bodies were stacked in multiple rooms and in various stages of decomposition.

In court filings described by the Associated Press, investigators said surveillance captured conduct inside the facility on Sept. 9, 2023, showing a person appearing to remove and move bodies among others stored inside the building. The affidavit included a description of a gurney and what investigators said appeared to be actions to transfer or move human remains within the room-temperature storage environment, the report said.

Johnson said he became consumed with the case after the FBI called, reading dozens of news reports and struggling with panic and trauma symptoms. He said an episode of the TV show “The Walking Dead” triggered a breakdown, and he said he started therapy, where he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Johnson said he joined Zoom meetings with other relatives and later traveled to Colorado in March 2024 after his mother’s body was identified, placing his hand on a cremation container and describing the moment when the cremator was started.

At the sentencing stage, Johnson said he promised himself he would speak, and he did so at Jon Hallford’s sentencing on Friday, according to the Associated Press. The report said Jon Hallford was sentenced to 40 years in prison, while Carie Hallford was set to be sentenced in April. Johnson told the Associated Press that “Justice is, it’s the part that is missing from this whole equation,” and said: “My mother earned the right to be known for her presence and not her death,” adding, “Jon Hallford stole that.”