Colorado Funeral Home Owner Gets 40 Years Sentence

(MENAFN) A mortuary proprietor in the US state of Colorado has been handed a 40-year sentence in state custody after authorities found he had kept 191 corpses in advanced stages of decay for several years and misled bereaved relatives with counterfeit cremated remains, according to reports released on Friday.

Jon Hallford, who jointly operated the Return to Nature Funeral Home, was denounced by victims’ families and reprimanded by the judge for offenses carried out from 2019 through 2023.

During that period, human remains were discovered crammed together and abandoned inside a property in Penrose, located south of Colorado Springs, as reported by a news agency.

Law enforcement officials said bodies were located across multiple rooms of the structure, some heaped atop others, while insects swarmed and liquids from decomposition spread across the floors. The dead — ranging from grown individuals to babies and fetuses — had been stored at ordinary indoor temperatures rather than preserved appropriately.

Presiding Judge Eric Bentley stated that Hallford inflicted “unspeakable and incomprehensible” damage, remarking that the disturbing case challenged the notion that people are “basically good at the core.”

Relatives of the deceased told the courtroom that they endured repeated nightmares upon discovering their loved ones had been allowed to deteriorate instead of being respectfully handled. Several pleaded for the harshest available punishment of 50 years, labeling Hallford a “monster.”

“I’m a daughter whose mother was treated like yesterday’s trash,” said Kelly Mackeen, whose mother was among those whose remains were improperly managed.

Addressing the court, Hallford expressed remorse, acknowledging that what he had done would “echo for a generation,” and conceded that he failed to intervene or correct his conduct despite numerous opportunities.

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