Summary
Nearly 200 decomposing bodies were found inside a Colorado funeral home in October, and unsealed court records now lay out a sequence of complaints, regulatory limits and alleged conduct that authorities said went on for years. The documents describe how Fremont County Coroner Randy Keller raised concerns about refrigeration of bodies in 2020, including worries about improper storage, but state regulators did not act on what he reported at the time.
According to the arrest affidavits for Jon Hallford and Carie Hallford, the coroner’s concerns were tied to Return to Nature Funeral Home and included complaints that bodies were not being properly refrigerated. The filings say Keller reported those issues to a state agency in 2020, but that he received no response.
Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Agencies said Friday that it did receive an email from Keller in May 2020 describing calls about refrigeration issues in Fremont County, though Keller did not name the specific funeral home in his message. In a statement, department spokesperson Katie O’Donnell said Keller offered to do an inspection himself if the state was not able to. O’Donnell also said the agency did not have the power to inspect funeral homes at the time, adding that lawmakers gave it inspection authority two years later.
The affidavits say the problem grew over time, with authorities alleging the Hallfords stored bodies dating back to 2019 and that the count increased over the next four years. Prosecutors also alleged that the couple used money taken from grieving families for expensive personal purchases, including trips and luxury shopping.
Neighbors discovered the bodies after complaining about the smell coming from a building, authorities said. When investigators responded, they found signs described in the affidavits as related to decomposition and described bodies as spread throughout rooms inside the Penrose building where the remains were stored as a mortuary site, separate from a building in Colorado Springs used by the business.
The court filings describe what investigators said they saw inside, including bodies strewn throughout rooms and surveillance footage that prosecutors said showed Jon Hallford treating one body more like a heavy object than a human being. The affidavits also say that buckets were placed under some bodies to collect decomposition fluid and that about 40 bodies had been stacked on top of each other, with some stored in storage totes. Authorities described working to remove the remains under “unimaginable conditions” while wearing protective equipment.
Tanya Wilson, who said she hired the funeral home to cremate her mother, told The Associated Press that she later learned her mother’s remains were not in the ashes she had spread in Hawaii. “The fact that he made a complaint and nothing was done about it just completely blows my mind,” Wilson said. “Families could’ve been saved from this if they had done something about this,” she added.
The affidavits describe how investigators believe Jon Hallford moved some bodies from the Colorado Springs location to the Penrose building in September after a complaint about odor at the main site. Prosecutors said surveillance footage showed him flipping a body off a gurney onto the floor at the Penrose building so he could use it to bring more bodies inside from a van on Sept. 9, 2023—one day after the complaint.
The documents also include more detailed allegations about finances and cremations. Prosecutors said Jon Hallford and Carie Hallford used funds paid for cremations and burials by families and insurance companies to cover lavish personal expenses, including trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, and purchases that prosecutors said included $31,000 in cryptocurrency, laser body sculpting, and shopping at luxury retailers such as Gucci and Tiffany.
In addition, the affidavits say Jon Hallford bought more than 600 pounds of concrete mix from Home Depot between 2020 and 2023 and that investigators suspect the couple put it in urns instead of ashes. Prosecutors also said some relatives received fake ashes rather than cremated remains of their loved ones. The arrest affidavits had been sealed since the couple’s arrest in Oklahoma after they allegedly fled, but they were made public after an evidentiary hearing Thursday for Jon Hallford; Carie Hallford’s hearing was held last month.
Jon Hallford is represented by public defender’s office attorney Adam Steigerwald, which does not comment on cases. Carie Hallford’s lawyer, Michael Stuzynski, declined to comment. The couple each face 190 counts of abuse of a corpse, five counts of theft, four counts of money laundering and more than 50 counts of forgery, according to court filings, and they have not yet been asked to enter a plea.