Funeral dwelling couple left 189 our bodies uncovered by odd liquid seeping beneath door
Cops were called to their home in Penrose, Colorado after neighbours noticed an ‘abhorrent’ smell coming from a building that belonged to the couple’s funeral home
The couple were found guilty of leaving bodies to rot(Image: AP)
A husband and wife have been jailed for more than 60 years after they left corpses to rot inside the funeral home they ran. Cops were called to their home in Penrose, Colorado after neighbours noticed an “abhorrent” smell coming from a building that belonged to the Return to Nature funeral home.
It was run by couple Jon and Carie Hallford and boasted online to offer “affordable, eco-friendly services for the community”, offering standard burials, green options and cremations. What made the business different to others was the fact they skipped the embalming stage and avoided the use of harsh chemicals. It was a modern, ethical option – and the funeral home became a trusted choice for bereaved families.
But behind the sunny demeanour, it turned out the husband and wife duo were simply not carrying out the task and hundreds of dead bodies were just left to rot. Police raided the building after the reports of a terrible smell were made in 2023 and made the horror discovery.
Officers noticed the smell instantly, but they couldn’t see inside because the windows were blacked out. They spoke with Jon about the stench and he said it was connected to his taxidermy hobby. Officers were suspicious of liquid that appeared to be seeping under the door. They got a search warrant and returned the next day.
Jon and Carie were nowhere to be seen but police found bodies stacked up on top of each other in nearly a dozen rooms.
The piles were so high they blocked doorways. Some had been there a few months, while others had been there since 2019.
In total there were 189 bodies. Many were in body bags while others were just wrapped in sheets. Adults, children and foetuses were in the advanced stages of decomposition due to the lack of refrigeration.
The floor was covered in bodily fluids, and the building was infested with insects and maggots. Buckets were scattered around to catch leaking fluids.
Carie and Jon had been assuring families that they had given their dead loved ones a dignified cremation, but they had just taken the money and thrown the bodies on a pile to rot.
Inside the building was a sack of concrete mix which was what Carie and Jon had given families in urns, pretending it was the ashes of their cremated loved ones.
News quickly spread about the horrific discovery and the Hallfords went on the run. Jon turned his phone off so he couldn’t be tracked but the FBI tracked Carie’s phone and they were found hiding with Jon’s parents in Oklahoma. The pair were arrested.
Police then got to work identifying the 189 bodies left to rot.
Investigators used fingerprints, dental records and even hospital bracelets that were still on the wrist of some victims before condemning and demolishing the building.
CCTV footage captured Jon entering the building at night and heartlessly flipping a body off a gurney to the floor so he could use it to bring more bodies in from a van. That night he sent a text to Carie saying, “While I was making the transfer, I got people juice on me.”
They had taken more than $130,000 from families for cremations that didn’t happen and nearly $900,000 in federal pandemic relief funds, which was supposed to be for struggling businesses.
The pair were held behind bars, and ended up getting a divorce.
Jon pleaded guilty to wire fraud and abuse of corpses. He said, “I had so many chances to put a stop to everything and walk away, but I did not. My mistakes will echo for a generation. Everything I did was wrong.”
Jon, 46, received 40 years for abuse of corpses and 20 years for wire fraud.
Carie, 49, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and abuse of corpses. She asked for leniency, claiming that she was a “scared and desperate mother” who was manipulated by her husband. Carie was sentenced to 18 years for wire fraud and awaits further sentencing for the abuse of corpses.
