Colorado judge rejects plea deal for funeral director who acknowledged abusing 191 corpses

Source: AP

By COLLEEN SLEVIN, MATTHEW BROWN and JESSE BEDAYN
Updated 4:02 PM CDT, August 22, 2025

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado judge on Friday rejected a plea agreement for a funeral home owner who acknowledged abusing 191 corpses, many of which languished in a room-temperature building for years as the owner and his wife maintained a lavish lifestyle.

The rare decision to reject the agreement came after families of the dead who were given fake ashes asked for a more severe punishment for Jon Hallford, who owned and operated Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs with his wife, Carie.

The plea agreement called for a 20-year prison sentence that would run concurrently with his 20-year federal sentence, meaning he could have been freed many years earlier than if the sentences ran consecutively.

Colorado has struggled to effectively oversee funeral homes and, for many years, had some of the weakest regulations in the nation. It’s had a slew of abuse cases, including an estimated 20 decomposing corpses discovered this week at a funeral home in Pueblo.



Read more: https://apnews.com/article/funeral-home-hallford-ashes-decomposing-bodies-colorado-e2776bbc423ed81971ad6a3e67d01536