DENVER — Return to Nature owners Jon and Carie Hallford were booked back into the El Paso County jail Sunday afternoon, this time facing federal fraud charges stemming from the discovery of nearly 200 bodies decomposing inside a funeral home the couple operated in rural Penrose, in October 2023.
The 15 federal counts pile atop 260 criminal charges — including “improper storage” of 189 bodies, abuse of a corpse, money laundering, forgery and theft — in a lengthy, layered legal process that’s already underway in El Paso County.
The Hallfords’ first court appearance in Colorado Springs is expected in early June. A jury trial is tentatively set for October.
According to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, the Hallfords were released into FBI custody Monday morning and promptly whisked to Denver to face multi-count federal charges that broadly characterized their crimes as a “scheme to defraud customers.”
According to the federal indictment, beginning “on or about September 15, 2019,” the Hallfords set out to defraud, for profit, clients who sought them out to provide a purported green burial for final disposition of their loved ones.
The charges also include misuse of federal small business loan funds. The money, about $880,000, was meant to offset the economic pain of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the Hallfords used it primarily on personal expenses, such as a car, personal vacations, entertainment, dining, a child's tuition, jewelry, cosmetic medical procedures among other purchases.
The primary public-facing part of the Hallfords' business, where they typically solicited, met with and consoled grieving clients, was in Colorado Springs. The Return to Nature Funeral Home on Werner Road in Penrose, where the bodies were discovered last year, is scheduled for demolition this week. A ceremony to honor the victims is scheduled at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Penrose.
For years after he founded the business in 2017, Jon Hallford “failed to provide the basic core service it (his company) promised to many of its customers — either a cremation or a burial,” according to the indictment.
Nonetheless, the Hallfords are alleged to have continued accepting clients and collecting payments for funeral and cremation services they had no intention of carrying out, for years.
Beginning as early as September 2019, and continuing through October 2023, the federal indictment accuses the Hallfords of failing to cremate or bury almost 200 bodies, in a scheme that likely netted them more than $130,000.
The Hallfords “attempted to conceal their fraudulent activity by allowing the 190 bodies to remain in various states of decay and decomposition within the Werner Road location in Penrose,” where the bodies remained until their discovery by authorities in October 2023, according to the indictment.
The couple managed to extend their crime for so long by effectively steering looky-loos away from the Penrose property, according to the federal allegations.
“The HALLFORDS concealed the gruesome collection of bodies … by preventing outsiders from entering their building, covering the windows and doors of the building to limit others from viewing inside, and providing false statements to others regarding the foul odor emanating from the building and the true nature of the activity occurring inside,” according to the indictment.
The Hallfords also “routinely prepared” false death certificates and illegally filed the erroneous reports with the state, according to the federal indictment.
Jon and Carie Hallford also are accused of passing on false information about the deceased to companies with whom they previously had contracted, and of providing fake cremated remains to families who’d contracted their services for disposition.
“The HALLFORDS — in a number of instances — provided the decedent’s family members, friends, or the designated next-of-kin with an urn filled with dry concrete,” according to the indictment.
Return to Nature’s alleged misdeeds don’t end there, according to the feds.
“The HALLFORDS on at least two occasions also arranged for and provided the wrong body for a cemetery burial resulting in the incorrect remains being buried in a gravesite plot while concealing this fact from the next-of-kin,” read the indictment.
Jon Hallford appeared in federal court Monday wearing an orange and gray Whataburger t-shirt. His wife sported a black sleeveless dress shirt.
The two sat on opposite ends of different rows in the courtroom.
Judge Scott Varholak granted the U.S. Assistant Attorney Tim Neff's request for a three-day continuance of the arraignment hearing, telling the judge he planned to argue the Hallfords should remain in custody while they await trial, based on their track record.
"There are grounds to believe they present a flight risk," he said.
The Hallfords disappeared to Oklahoma before the 4th Judicial District Attorney filed numerous charges against them, including 190 counts of abuse of a corpse, 61 counts of forgery, four counts of theft and money laundering.
They were found living on a Native American reservation, before returning to Colorado Springs to face charges.
When the two were arrested on federal charges they were living in a hotel room, and Neff said the couple does not have stable housing or stable employment currently.
He also argued the funeral home in Penrose was recklessly abandoned and presented a human health hazard.
Jon Hallford's public defender argued that since he was released from jail in January he has abided by court requirements, including GPS monitoring, and no heightened risk of flight exists.
In response to a reporter's query about why the accused aren't facing more serious charges for an alleged years long spree of ghoulish serial crimes, Neff said he has no easy answer.
"That question is a fair one ... I am just not comfortable talking about it really now," he said.