Colorado funeral home owner, wife arrested on charges linked to handling of at least 189 bodies: FBI
A Colorado funeral home owner and his wife have been arrested and charged in connection with the improper storage of nearly 200 bodies that were removed from their “eco-friendly” facility last month.
Jon and Carrie Hallford were arrested Wednesday in Wagoner, Oklahoma on suspicion of four felonies, including abuse of a corpse, money laundering, and forgery, District Attorney Michael J. Allen said.
Jon Hallford was being held in jail in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, though there are no records indicating Carrie was also there, a man at the jail said.
Jon is the owner of Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, outside of Denver.
The facility made headlines last month when authorities responded to reports of an “abhorrent smell” inside the rundown building on Oct. 4.
The officials stumbled upon what was later confirmed to be the decomposing remains of 189 bodies.
The day after the odor was reported, Hallford told the director of the state office of Funeral Home and Crematory registration that he did have a “problem” at the Penrose site and claimed that he practiced taxidermy there, according to a state order dated Oct. 5.
Nature Funeral Home opened in 2017, and offered both cremations and “green” burials without embalming.
The business remained operating despite growing financial and legal concerns, including missing tax payments, evictions from multiple properties, and lawsuit involving unpaid bills to a crematory, public records and interviews indicated.
Funeral homes in Colorado are notably not required to undergo routine inspections and fulfill qualification requirements.
As a result, there is no record indicating that state regulators visited the Penrose property or contacted Hallford until over 10 months after the business’s registration expired in November 2022.
With Post wires
