DENVER -- A snowstorm forced a Colorado court to postpone a hearing Friday where funeral home owners, accused of piling 190 bodies inside a room-temperature building while giving grieving families fake ashes , were expected to plead guilty. The discovery last year shattered families’ grieving processes. The milestones of mourning — the “goodbye” as the ashes were picked up by the wind, the relief that they had fulfilled their loved ones’ wishes, the moments cradling the urn and musing on memories — now felt hollow.
The couple, Jon and Carie Hallford, who own Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs, began stashing bodies in a dilapidated building outside the city as far back as 2019, according to the charges, giving families dry concrete in place of cremains. While going into debt, the Hallfords spent extravagantly , prosecutors say. They used customers' money — and nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds intended for their business — to buy fancy cars, laser body sculpting, trips to Las Vegas and Florida, $31,000 in cryptocurrency and other luxury items, according to court records.
Last month, the Hallfords pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges as part of an agreement in which they acknowledged defrauding customers and the federal government. On Friday in state court, the two were expected to plead guilty in connection with more than 200 charges of corpse abuse, theft, forgery and money laundering. The hearing has been rescheduled to Nov.
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