Investigators described discovering decaying our bodies stacked atop one another all through a dilapidated, bug-infested constructing.
A decide within the US state of Colorado has handed a funeral house proprietor, who stashed 191 useless our bodies on his premises, a 20-year jail sentence for dishonest clients and defrauding the federal authorities.
Federal prosecutors had sought a 15-year sentence for Jon Hallford, the proprietor of Return to Nature Funeral House in Colorado, the place he and his spouse, Carie Hallford, saved our bodies between 2019 and 2023 and despatched households faux ashes.
At Friday’s listening to, US District Decide Nina Wang mentioned the circumstances and scale of John Hallford’s crimes, in addition to the emotional injury to households he inflicted, warranted an extended sentence.
“This isn’t an abnormal fraud case,” Decide Wang mentioned.
Investigators have been referred to as to the dilapidated, insect-infested constructing within the small city of Penrose, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Denver, in 2023 after studies of an “abhorrent odor” coming from the property.
At trial, investigators described discovering the our bodies stacked on prime of one another and being unable to maneuver into some rooms as a result of they have been piled so excessive with human stays.
FBI brokers additionally needed to put boards down so they may stroll across the crime scene and above the bodily fluid that had pooled on the bottom.
The morbid discovery by investigators in 2023 revealed for the primary time to many households that the ashes they’d obtained from Return to Nature have been faux. Court docket paperwork confirmed Hallford had despatched households urns crammed with dry concrete combine, and in two instances, the mistaken physique had been buried.
In separate prices, Jon Hallford has pleaded responsible to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court docket. He’s scheduled to be sentenced for these prices in August.
Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial within the federal case in September. That very same month, she is going to attend her subsequent listening to within the state case, by which she’s additionally charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.
COVID-19 fraud
At Friday’s listening to, Jon Hallford was additionally jailed for defrauding the US federal authorities out of almost $900,000 in emergency monetary help supplied to People coping with the financial affect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a information assertion, the US Lawyer’s Workplace within the District of Colorado mentioned the Hallfords had “defrauded the Small Enterprise Administration via fraudulent COVID-19 mortgage functions”.
Federal prosecutors mentioned the Hallfords syphoned the cash and spent it, together with clients’ funds, on SUVs price greater than $120,000, together with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, and luxurious gadgets from shops like Gucci and Tiffany & Co.
Along with his jail sentence, Jon Hallford was additionally “ordered to pay $1,070,413.74 in restitution for a conspiracy to commit wire fraud”, in accordance with the District of Colorado.
The District of Colorado assertion mentioned the Hallfords had “collected greater than $130,000 from grieving households for funeral providers that have been by no means supplied”.
“As a substitute of making certain correct disposition of the stays, Hallford allowed our bodies to build up in varied states of decay and decomposition contained in the funeral house’s facility,” it mentioned.
In line with an order suspending the house’s registration as a funeral institution, Jon Hallford had claimed when the our bodies have been found “that he practises taxidermy” on the property.
In court docket earlier than the sentencing, Jon Hallford advised the decide that he opened Return to Nature to make a optimistic affect on individuals’s lives, however “then the whole lot acquired fully uncontrolled”.
“I’m so deeply sorry for my actions,” he mentioned. “I nonetheless hate myself for what I’ve performed.”
