(KXRM) – A judge in Colorado denied a plea deal for a funeral home director who admitted to mistreating 191 corpses, many of which were stored in a building at room temperature for years while he and his wife lived extravagantly.
Jon Hallford, the co-owner of the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs, previously pled guilty to state charges of corpse abuse.
The proposed plea deal suggested a 20-year prison term to run alongside his 20-year federal sentence, potentially allowing him to be released much sooner than if the sentences were served one after the other.
During a court session at midday, El Paso County District Court Judge Eric Bentley dismissed the agreement. He paused before issuing a ruling, expressing that the emotional testimonies from the victims’ families that morning deeply influenced his decision, stating, “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
Bentley questioned whether Jon Hallford would retract his guilty plea, and the defense requested two weeks to decide. The judge agreed to this timeline, setting the next court date for Friday, Sept. 12, at 9 a.m.
If Hallford withdraws his plea, the case will go to trial.
Carie Hallford, facing the same charges as her husband, also admitted guilt. Her sentencing for the abuse of corpses has yet to be scheduled.
The Hallfords obtained a funeral home license in 2017, and authorities noted that by 2019, bodies started accumulating. Many were left to decay for an extended period, some beyond recognition, and others were found unclothed or on the floor in fluids from the bodies.
In total, the couple was accused of letting 189 bodies decay. In two other instances, the wrong bodies were buried. Four remains were yet to be identified, the district attorney’s office said this week.
As the gruesome count grew, Jon and Carie Hallford were also defrauding the federal government out of nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief aid.
With the money from families and the federal government, the Hallfords bought ritzy items from stores like Tiffany & Co., a GMC Yukon and Infiniti worth $120,000 combined, laser body sculpting and $31,000 in cryptocurrency.
In 2023, a putrid smell poured from the building and the police turned up. Investigators swarmed the building, donning hazmat suits and painstakingly extracting the bodies. Hallford and his wife were arrested in Oklahoma, where Jon Hallford had family, more than a month later.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
