DENVER—The owners of a Colorado funeral home are expected to plead guilty Friday to state charges accusing them of leaving 190 bodies to decay on their premises and giving the grieving relatives fake ashes.
The owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home, Jon and Carie Hallford, began storing bodies in a decrepit building near Colorado Springs as far back as 2019 and gave families dry concrete in place of cremated remains, according to the charges. The grim discovery last year upended families’ grieving processes.
Over the years, the Hallfords spent extravagantly, prosecutors say. They used customers’ money and nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds to buy laser body sculpting, fancy cars, trips to Las Vegas and Florida, $31,000 in cryptocurrency, and other luxury items, according to court records….