Judge cancels fraud trial date for owners of Colorado funeral home where 190 decaying bodies were found and sets change-of-plea hearing

A federal judge has thrown out an October trial and rescheduled a hearing to amend the fraud case against the owners of a Colorado funeral home where authorities found 190 decomposing bodies.

Jon and Carie Hallford were indicted in April on fraud charges that they squandered nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief money on vacations, jewelry and other personal expenses.

They own the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs and in Penrose, where the bodies were found.

The lawsuit alleges that the Hallfords gave families dry concrete instead of cremated ashes and that they buried the wrong body twice.

The couple is also said to have received more than $130,000 from families for cremations and burials they never performed.

The 15 indictments returned by the federal grand jury are separate from the more than 200 criminal charges pending in state court against the Hallfords for corpse abuse, money laundering, theft and forgery.

In August, a judge ordered the Hallfords to pay $950 million to the families.

Carie Hallford filed a statement with the court on Thursday saying “a settlement has been reached in the instant case” and requesting a hearing on the change of plea.

Jon Hallford said in his request that he wanted a hearing “so that the court could consider the proposed plea agreement.”

The judge granted their request to remove the October 15 trial date and all related dates and deadlines. The change of plea hearings were set for October 24.

Hallford Funeral Home promised families a more natural burial, offering to bury the bodies without embalming fluids or metal caskets if families chose not to have the remains cremated.

Relatives paid more than $1,200 for an environmental cause, with the promise that trees would be planted in the Colorado National Forest.

But last November, investigators found nearly 200 bodies in “appalling conditions” at the property, left to rot at room temperature.

The bodies were found after neighbors complained about a “smell of dead animals” in the area surrounding the funeral home.

Some of the bodies had been in the maggot-infested building for years before they were discovered after reports of a foul odor.

At the time of the raid, the company had overdue bills of more than $120,000 and had been repeatedly sued over unpaid wages and disputes with local medical centers.

When they were charged, investigators alleged the couple used family money to purchase two vehicles worth more than $120,000.

The couple’s funeral home promised an environmentally friendly final act for the bereaved, who would pay more than $1,200 for provisions including planting trees in the Colorado National Forest

Prosecutors say that in addition to their funeral home, they also used a building in the nearby rural community of Penrose to store their bodies.

In April, federal prosecutors also alleged that the Hallfords lied to obtain $882,300 in disaster aid, which they spent on themselves instead of on their business.

Samantha Naranjo (right) discovered that mother Dorothy’s body had been stored in the dilapidated building for more than a year

CO DA holds press conference on Return to Nature Funeral Home

At a preliminary hearing earlier this year, FBI agent Andrew Cohen testified that the money, a modification of a small business loan made to the Hallfords during the pandemic, was obtained fraudulently after Hallford lied by saying he was not behind on alimony payments.

At an earlier hearing for Carie Hallford, prosecutors presented texts showing she and her husband tried to cover up their financial problems by leaving the bodies at the Penrose location.

Family members said they had raised their suspicions with the couple, but were repeatedly ignored or brushed off.

When the family of retired Army officer Tanya Wilson received her ashes, her brother Elliot found them unusually heavy and confronted Carie Hallford about them.

When he took them to a nearby funeral home, he was told, “I’ve never seen anything that looked like what cremated remains usually look like.”

Chrystina Page, right, holds Heather De Wolf back as she yells at Jon Hallford, left, as he leaves with his lawyers after a preliminary hearing, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024

Two families were so suspicious that they mixed the ‘ashes’ with water and discovered that the ashes solidified.

Samantha Naranjo discovered that mother Dorothy’s body had been stored in the dilapidated building for over a year.

She told KRDO, “We were hurt, we were frustrated, now we’re angry. We want justice. Not just for ourselves, but for each of those victims. Every single one of them.

“Their family deserves peace, the community deserves justice.”