A judge in Colorado has handed a 20-year prison sentence to a funeral home owner who stashed 191 dead bodies on his premises.
Jon Hallford, the owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, was found guilty of cheating customers and defrauding the federal government.
Fake Ashes and Decaying Bodies
Investigators discovered the bodies stacked on top of each other in a dilapidated, insect-infested building in Penrose, Colorado.
The morbid discovery revealed that families had been sent fake ashes, with some even receiving the wrong body.
At trial, investigators described finding the bodies in a state of decay, with bodily fluids pooling on the ground. FBI agents had to put boards down to walk around the crime scene.
Corpse Abuse and COVID-19 Fraud
Jon Hallford has pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court and will be sentenced in August.
He was also jailed for defrauding the US federal government out of nearly $900,000 in emergency financial assistance provided during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Hallfords syphoned the money and spent it on luxury items, including SUVs worth over $120,000 and cryptocurrency.
They also collected more than $130,000 from grieving families for funeral services that were never provided.
A Sentence Fit for the Crime
US District Judge Nina Wang said the circumstances and scale of Jon Hallford’s crimes warranted a longer sentence. “This is not an ordinary fraud case,” Judge Wang said, handing him the maximum prison sentence of 240 months.
Jon Hallford told the judge that he opened Return to Nature to make a positive impact on people’s lives, but “then everything got completely out of control”.
“I am so deeply sorry for my actions,” he said. “I still hate myself for what I’ve done.”
Consequences for the Hallfords
In addition to his jail sentence, Jon Hallford was ordered to pay $1,070,413.74 in restitution for conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
His wife, Carie Hallford, is scheduled to go to trial in September and faces 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court.