Colorado funeral home owner pleads guilty to fraud involving decaying bodies

In Colorado, a funeral home owner is facing serious charges including fraud and corpse abuse. Carie Hallford, who operated Return to Nature Funeral Home along with her husband Jon Hallford, allegedly stored nearly 190 decomposing bodies within a building kept at room temperature. This alarming discovery was made during a search in 2023, where authorities found the bodies stacked and in deplorable conditions, shocking families who believed they had received the ashes of their loved ones. Reports indicate that the Hallfords reportedly defrauded the federal government out of approximately $900,000 through the Small Business Administration, in addition to cheating customers who had paid for cremation services that were never conducted. Instead of utilizing the relief aid correctly, they are accused of squandering the funds on extravagant purchases including luxury cars and high-end goods. Jon Hallford has already pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2025. Carie Hallford is anticipated to change her plea to guilty in a federal court proceeding. Moreover, the couple has also been charged in a separate state court case with 191 counts related to corpse abuse, which include accusations of mishandling bodies between 2019 and 2023, and in some cases, burying the wrong bodies. The growing concerns over this case highlight the grave implications of fraud in funeral services, particularly how affected families have been devastated to learn the truth regarding their loved ones' remains. This tragic sequence of events underscores the importance of overseeing funeral homes and ensuring they adhere to ethical practices to protect grieving families from further trauma.