Owners of a funeral home where 190 decaying bodies were found to appear in court

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The proprietors of a funeral establishment in Colorado, where a disturbing discovery of 190 decomposing bodies was made, are scheduled to make a court appearance on Tuesday. They are facing a litany of allegations, including the mistreatment of corpses, embezzlement, money laundering, and the fabrication of official documents.

Jon and Carie Hallford are the owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home, which operates a facility in Penrose. In early October, law enforcement investigators stumbled upon a disconcerting scene at this location, where numerous bodies were found stacked, some of which had recorded death dates stretching as far back as 2019, as detailed in a federal affidavit.

Tragically, family members had been falsely informed that their deceased loved ones had undergone cremation, and they were provided with materials that were not the actual remains of their dear departed.

Reports indicate that a number of families who had entrusted Return to Nature Funeral Home with the cremation of their relatives were privately informed by the FBI that their loved ones were among the bodies found in a state of decay.

The Hallfords were apprehended in Oklahoma just last month, with allegations that they had fled Colorado to evade legal repercussions. They are presently detained on a substantial $2 million bond. Both individuals are facing a multitude of charges, including approximately 190 counts of corpse abuse, five counts of theft, four counts of money laundering, and over 50 counts of forgery.

According to court records, Jon Hallford is being represented by the public defender’s office, which refrains from commenting on ongoing cases to the media. Carie Hallford, on the other hand, has legal representation in the form of attorney Michael Stuzynski, who has opted not to provide any comments regarding the case.

Following the removal of the bodies from the Penrose facility, located approximately an hour south of Denver, authorities initiated a meticulous process to identify the remains, relying on methods such as fingerprints, dental records, medical hardware, and DNA analysis.

It is noteworthy that the Hallfords’ funeral home business is headquartered in Colorado Springs, situated just west of Penrose.

This report was authored by Bedayn, a member of the Big Big News team participating in the Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program dedicated to deploying journalists in local newsrooms to investigate and report on underrepresented and overlooked issues.

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