Funeral home owner learns fate after abusing nearly 200 corpses, bilking service funds

A Colorado funeral home owner who left nearly 200 bodies to rot and duped the grieving families with fake ashes while pocketing the funeral service money for personal shopping sprees was sentenced Friday to 40 years behind bars.

Jon Hallford, one half of a Colorado couple at the center of the dastardly scheme, was sentenced to 40 years behind bars — just a decade short of the maximum sentence his victims begged the judge to impose.

Jon’s ex-wife, Carie Hallford, was also complicit in the years-long ploy. Her sentence is still pending.

Family members packed into the courtroom to hear Jon’s fate Friday afternoon.

When given the opportunity to speak at Jon’s sentencing, many detailed how the Hallfords’ deception still haunts them through recurring nightmares evoking visions of rotting flesh, swarming maggots, and the painful acceptance that their loved ones were left to rot, as reported by KOMO News.

Judge Eric Bentley concluded that Jon caused “unspeakable and incomprehensible” harm to his clients and their loved ones.

Jon offered a flimsy apology, confessing that he “had so many chances to put a stop to everything” and chose not to. Still, his words appeared to fall on deaf ears as his victims stared him down.

Carie and Jon operated the Return to Nature funeral home where, between 2019 and 2023, they ditched bodies in a 2,500-square-foot building away from their business.

The bodies slowly but surely piled up inside the room-temperature building. Insects swarmed the space and picked at the rotting corpses while maggots spawned in the filth.

People who passed at all stages of life, including babies, were all dumped inside the building.

Authorities came across the “horrific” scene while responding to reports of a foul stench permeating the area.

It took months to identify the bodies and notify their surviving family members, who were given dry concrete instead of cremation ashes.

Jon splurged the money budgeted for funeral services on luxury vehicles, cryptocurrency, designer goods, and, most bizarrely, laser body sculpting treatments — all while neglecting to pay their bills.

He billed families for his funeral home’s purported biodegradable interment and cremation, costing up to $1,895.

Jon and Carie both pleaded guilty to 189 counts of corpse abuse in December. Carie is set to be sentenced on April 24, and faces up to 35 years in prison.

The exes previously pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges for draining $900,000 in pandemic-era small business aid from the government. Jon was sentenced to 20 years in prison in that case, while Carie’s sentencing is still pending.

With Post wires