Funeral home owner who left nearly 190 bodies in building and sent fake ashes is sentenced for wire fraud

DENVER (TCN) -- A 45-year-old man who mishandled at least 190 bodies at his funeral home and provided families with fake ashes will spend two decades behind bars for wire fraud.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado announced that a judge sentenced Jon Hallford, the owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, on June 27 to 240 months, or 20 years, behind bars. He'll also have to pay over $1 million in restitution for conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Jon Hallford and his wife, Carie Hallford, pleaded guilty to charges related to wire fraud last year, KRDO-TV reports. Carie Hallford reportedly rejected the original plea deal and is scheduled to go to trial in September.

According to his plea agreement, Jon Hallford "failed to cremate or bury at least 190 bodies" between September 2019 and October 2023 even though he had collected over $130,000 from "grieving families for funeral services that were never provided."

On Oct. 3, 2023, the Fremont County Sheriff's Office responded to a building owned by the defendant's funeral home to investigate a "suspicious incident." The following day, authorities found human remains that were improperly stored inside the building.

According to prosecutors, Hallford "allowed bodies to accumulate in various states of decay and decomposition inside the funeral home’s facility," and he attempted to hide his crimes by blocking windows and doors. He also reportedly restricted access to the building and lied about why there was a "foul odor" emitting from the property.

Authorities said Hallford sometimes gave families urns filled with a dry concrete mix instead of their loved ones' ashes. He reportedly delivered the wrong body for burial at least twice and hid the mistake.

Federal prosecutors said Hallford "routinely filed death certificates with the State of Colorado that falsely listed the method of disposition as cremation or burial" and would often misrepresent the decedents' identities to other crematories, causing inaccurate records. At times, remains were never cremated or buried.

Per the plea agreement, Hallford and his wife also conspired to illegally obtain COVID-19 relief funds from March 2020 to March 2022. The defendant and his wife reportedly received a total of over $880,000 from the Small Business Administration in three separate disbursements.

United States Attorney Peter McNeilly said, "Jon Hallford’s criminal fraud was a vehicle to exploit grieving families so he could give himself a lavish life with luxury cars and expensive vacations."

Colorado Bureau of Investigation Interim Director Rebecca Spiess added, "The sheer scale and callousness of the crimes committed by Jon Hallford are truly disturbing."

 Hallford will be sentenced in August for the separate 191 counts of corpse abuse he pleaded guilty to.

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