Funeral home owners plead guilty after nearly 200 decomposing bodies found

The married co-owners of a Colorado funeral home where nearly 200 decomposing bodies were found pleaded guilty Friday to corpse abuse.

Jon and Carie Hallford ran the Return to Nature Funeral Home, which had operations in the Colorado Springs area and in Penrose, Colorado.

The shocking discovery was made at the Penrose location in October 2023, after the Fremont County Sheriff's Office responded to reports from residents of a foul odor coming from the facility. Some of the bodies found had died as far back as 2019, officials said.

The two pleaded guilty to 191 counts of abuse of a corpse, 4th Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen, whose office prosecuted the case, said. The counts include two instances where the wrong bodies were buried.

The judge accepted their pleas during a hearing on Friday, though has not yet accepted the plea agreements and will reserve judgment for that until sentencing next year, Allen said.

Carie Hallford faces 15 to 20 years in prison, and Jon Hallford faces 20 years, the district attorney said.

Their sentencing has been scheduled for April 18, 2025.

"Obviously this case has been a huge, emotional struggle for all of the families that are present," Allen said outside the El Paso County courthouse on Friday. "The impact on these family members has been immense."

He acknowledged that the victims will "likely never recover" from the violation of trust but that his office was honored to "achieve justice for them."

Following the discovery of the bodies, investigators uncovered a scheme in which the couple had been defrauding customers who believed their loved ones would be buried or cremated, according to court documents.

The couple previously admitted in a related federal case to accepting payment for the services but then never performing them -- in some cases providing dry concrete mix in urns in place of cremains, according to court documents.

The couple admitted to collecting more than $130,000 from victims for cremation or burial services which they never performed over a more than four-year period, court documents show. They also admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. Small Business Administration of more than $800,000 in COVID-19 pandemic relief funds, according to court documents.

Both pleaded guilty last month in the federal case to one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. They are scheduled to be sentenced in that case on March 20, 2025. They each face up to 20 years in federal prison, prosecutors said.

Allen said it is conceivable that the state prison sentence would run concurrent to the federal sentence.

Carie Hallford's bond was revoked during Friday's hearing and she was remanded into custody. Her attorney declined to comment to ABC News.

Jon Hallford was already in custody. He is represented by the public defender's office, which does not comment on cases.