The owners of a funeral home in Colorado, accused of storing 190 decaying bodies, have pleaded guilty to corpse abuse.
Jon and Carie Hallford, who own the Return to Nature Funeral Home, began storing bodies in an old building near Colorado Springs as far back as 2019, prosecutors allege.
It is further alleged the couple gave families of the deceased dry concrete instead of ashes.
The Hallfords have been charged with more than 200 charges of corpse abuse, theft, forgery and money laundering in state court.
The funeral home in 2023. Pic: Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette/AP
The grim discovery of the bodies was made last year after reports of an “abhorrent smell” coming from a building on the property.
Over the years the couple allegedly spent nearly $900,000 (£723,000) in pandemic relief funds on things such as holidays, cosmetic surgery, jewellery and $31,000 (£24,000) in cryptocurrency, according to court records.
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Last month, the Hallfords pleaded guilty to federal charges in which they acknowledged they defrauded customers and the federal government.
The case has shocked the state of Colorado, which previously had some of the US’s weakest funeral home regulations.
This year, politicians brought state regulations up to par, largely with support from the funeral home industry.