Funeral home owner who stashed nearly 190 decomposing bodies sentenced to 20 years prison

DENVER AP A Colorado funeral home owner who stashed nearly dead bodies in a decrepit building and sent grieving families fake ashes was sentenced to years in prison in federal court Friday for cheating customers and defrauding the federal governing body out of nearly in COVID- aid Jon Hallford owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud last year and had faced a maximum of years in prison Federal prosecutors are seeking a -year sentence and Hallford s attorney appealed for years In court before the sentencing Hallford informed the judge that he opened Return to Nature to make a positive impact in people s lives then everything got fully out of control especially me I am so deeply sorry for my actions he declared I still hate myself for what I ve done Hallford will be sentenced in August in a separate state affair in which he pleaded guilty to counts of corpse abuse Hallford and co-owner Carie Hallford were accused of storing the bodies between and and sending families fake ashes Investigators described finding the bodies in stacked atop each other throughout a squat bug-infested building in Penrose a small town about a two-hour drive south of Denver The morbid discovery revealed to numerous families that their loved ones weren t cremated and that the ashes they had spread or cherished were fake In two cases the wrong body was buried according to court documents A large number of families disclosed it undid their grieving processes Particular relatives had nightmares others have struggled with guilt and at least one wondered about their loved one s soul Among the casualties who spoke during Friday s sentencing was a boy named Colton Sperry With his head poking just above the lectern he informed the judge about his grandmother who Sperry disclosed was a second mother to him and died in Her body languished inside the Return to Nature building for four years until the discovery which plunged Sperry into depression He mentioned he explained his parents at the time If I die too I could meet my grandma in heaven and talk to her again His parents brought him to the hospital for a mental medical check which led to therapy and an emotional encouragement dog I miss my grandma so much he advised the judge through tears Federal prosecutors accused both Hallfords of pandemic aid fraud siphoning the aid and spending it and customer s payments on a GMC Yukon and Infiniti worth over combined along with in cryptocurrency luxury items from stores like Gucci and Tiffany Co and even laser body sculpting Derrick Johnson notified the judge that he travelled miles to testify over how his his mother was thrown into a festering sea of death I lie awake wondering was she naked Was she stacked on top of others like lumber reported Johnson While the bodies rotted in secret the Hallfords lived they laughed and they dined he added My moms cremation money likely helped pay for a cocktail a day at the spa a first class flight Hallford s attorney Laura H Suelau solicited for a lower sentence of years in the hearing Friday saying that Hallford knows he was wrong he admitted he was wrong and hasn t offered an excuse His sentencing in the state affair is scheduled in August Asking for a year sentence for Hallford Assistant U S Attorney Tim Neff described the scene inside the building Investigators couldn t move into chosen rooms because the bodies were piled so high and in various states of decay FBI agents had to put boards down so they could walk above the fluid which was later pumped out Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial in the federal occurrence in September the same month as her next hearing in the state circumstance in which she s also charged with counts of corpse abuse Source