Jon and Carie Hallford ran the Returrn to Nature funeral home. (Mug shots: Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office)
Authorities arrested the owners of a funeral home after they were accused of improperly storing at least 189 dead bodies and even giving a number of families fake ashes.
Jon Hallford, 43, and Carie Hallford, 46, are in the Muskogee County Jail in Oklahoma awaiting extradition to El Paso County, Colorado. Prosecutors in The Centennial State announced charges on Wednesday of abuse of a corpse, theft, money laundering, and forgery.
This debacle emerged in early October, when locals in Penrose, Colorado, noted an awful smell emerging from the property linked to the Halford-owned funeral home, Return to Nature.
According to a related lawsuit, Jon Hallford tried to pass off the stench as the result of his taxidermy hobby.
However, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation claimed to have found at least 189 bodies at the facility. Authorities were not too sure — they warned the number could change as the investigation and process of identifying the victims continued.
Some families stepped forward to claim that they had paid Return to Nature to cremate their loved ones. Instead, the company allegedly gave them fake ashes.
The aforementioned lawsuit, filed by Richard Law on behalf of his dead father Roger, alleges that the owners gave loved ones “counterfeit ashes” and falsified death certificates.
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“They knew what they were doing was disgusting, but they kept doing it,” plaintiff attorney Andrew Swan previously told Law&Crime.
Other loved ones who stepped forward have also cast skepticism on the so-called ashes they received. Four families who’ve spoken to The Associated Press said the material seemed like dry concrete.
One of the relatives, Tanya Wilson, told KDRO about doing side-by-side testing in which she mixed water separately with Quikrete and the so-called ashes that supposedly belonged to her mother, Yong Anderson.
“The reaction, it looked very, very similar, the consistency and everything,” Wilson told KDRO. “Then when it dried, it dried into little tiny rocks, very, very similar. It gave me confirmation that I believe it’s concrete.”
It’s worth mentioning the Hallfords’ cash woes in light of the money-related charges.
The couple owes more than $21,000 to Wilbert Funeral Services, according to another lawsuit covered by KRDO. Kenney and Company, a real estate agency, sued the Hallfords, saying the couple owed more than $97,000 for rent, damages and other charges. Carie Hallford also had thousands in debt with the state’s Department of Revenue.
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