Ex-funeral home owner faces 20 years in prison after giving families fake ashes

DENVER– A former Colorado funeral home owner who helped her ex-husband hide nearly 200 decomposing bodies in a building is asking for leniency when she is sentenced Monday, saying she was a “scared and desperate mother” who was manipulated to keep the family business running.

Carie Hallford, 48, faces up to 20 years in prison for confiscating more than $130,000 from families for funeral services, including cremations, and often giving them urns filled with concrete mix instead. In two cases, investigators discovered the wrong body had been buried. In August, she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and admitted that she and her ex-husband Jon Hallford deceived customers and also defrauded the federal government of nearly $900,000 in pandemic small business aid.

Carie Hallford decided to divorce after she was returned to prison in her state case in November 2024, which put her out of range of her husband’s constant calls and texts and allowed the “fog in her mind from the years of abuse” to clear, according to a court filing by her attorney, Robert Charles Melihercik.

Federal sentencing guidelines recommend a prison sentence of up to eight years since Carie Hallford had no criminal history. But government lawyers are asking U.S. District Judge Nina Y. Wang to sentence her to 15 years in prison, in part for profiting from people’s grief following one of the largest discoveries of decomposing bodies at a funeral home in the United States.

Those who entrusted their loved ones to the Hallfords have suffered guilt, shame, nightmares and panic attacks since the bodies were discovered in 2023. They were stacked so high in some places they blocked doors. There were insects and maggots. Buckets had been placed to catch leaking liquids.

Prosecutors also want a longer sentence because the former couple, who had proposed “green burials” without embalming, lavishly spent a pandemic-era small business loan on vehicles, cryptocurrency and expensive products from stores like Gucci and Tiffany. & Co. and laser body sculpting rather than at their Return to Nature funeral home in Colorado Springs.

Carie Hallford is seeking an eight-year sentence. In court documents, defense attorney Robert Charles Melihercik said Hallford’s actions were motivated by “fear and severe anxiety.” He said Hallford’s former husband used “classic instruments of domestic violence” to control her, including at times threatening to commit suicide and kill her.

The attorney who represented Jon Hallford in state court, Adam Steigerwald, declined to comment on the abuse allegations. The lawyer who represented him in Federal Court, Laura Suelau, did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

Some victims don’t sympathize with Carie Hallford, the public face of the company who met with families and assured them their loved ones would be treated with respect.

Emma Williams, whose family has entrusted the Hallfords to care for her father’s remains in 2022, said Carie Hallford had a choice.

“She continued to stay at the company and take advantage of us through her own greed,” she said.

Crystina Page, whose son’s body was left at the funeral home after his 2019 murder, said Carie Hallford spent four years “feeding the monster” by continuing to take on more cases.

“She’s just as guilty as he is, except he couldn’t have done it without her bringing the bodies to him,” Page said.

Carie Hallford says much of the lavish spending of government loan money was the result of “love-bombing” as Jon Hallford tried to apologize to her. She urged her husband to buy a cremator with the loan money, but she was too afraid to force the issue, Melihercik said in the court filing.

“Even though she will be behind bars for at least a decade, she finally feels free,” Melihercik wrote. He also said a shorter sentence would allow Carie Hallford to return to work and repay money the couple took from their victims.

Carie Hallford also faces 25 to 35 years in prison when she is sentenced in state court on related charges next month.

Jon and Carie Hallford each pleaded guilty in December to nearly 200 counts of abuse of a corpse in state court. The plea agreements require their state and federal sentences to be served concurrently.

Jon Hallford was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the federal case and 40 years in the state case. At his sentencing last month in the state’s case, he apologized and said he would regret his actions for the rest of his life.

“I had so many opportunities to end everything and walk away, but I didn’t,” he said. “My mistakes will resonate for a generation. Everything I did was wrong.”