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

DENVER (AP) — 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 operating.

Carie Hallford, 48, faces up to 20 years in prison for taking over $130,000 from families for funeral services, including cremations, and often giving them urns full of concrete mix instead. In two cases, investigators found the wrong body was 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 cheated customers and also defrauded the federal government out of nearly $900,000 in pandemic small business aid.

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

Federal sentencing guidelines recommend prison time up to eight years since Carie Hallford didn’t have a criminal history. But lawyers for the government are asking U.S. District Judge Nina Y. Wang to sentence her to 15 years, in part, for taking advantage of grieving people following one of the largest discoveries of decaying bodies at a funeral home in the U.S.

Those who entrusted their loved ones to the Hallfords struggled with guilt, shame, nightmares and panic attacks since the bodies were discovered in 2023. They were stacked so high in some places that they blocked doorways. There were bugs and maggots. Buckets had been placed to catch leaking fluids.

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

Carie Hallford is asking to be sentenced to eight years. In court documents, defense lawyer, 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 threatening at times to kill himself and her.

The lawyer 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 return a call seeking comment.

Some victims are not sympathetic to Carie Hallford, the public face of the business who met with families and assured them their loved ones would be treated with respect.

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

“She continued to stay with the business and take advantage of us out her own greed,” she said.

Crystina Page, whose son’s body was left at the funeral home after he was killed in 2019, said Carie Hallford spent four years “feeding the monster” by continuing to accept more business.

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

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

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

Carie Hallford is also facing 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 corpse abuse in state court. The plea deals require their state and federal sentences to be served at the same time.

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

“I had so many chances to put a stop to everything and walk away, but I did not,” he said. “My mistakes will echo for a generation. Everything I did was wrong.”