More than a hundred bodies never cremated or buried. A couple who owned a funeral home pleaded guilty to abuse of corpses after nearly 200 decomposing bodies were discovered at their home in Colorado, United States, ABC News reported on Friday (November 22).
In October 2023, residents of Penrose, Colorado reported to the sheriff a persistent foul odor in the area. The police go to Jon and Carie Hallford's house, where the smells are coming from.
It was there that the police discovered with astonishment that 191 corpses were in a state of decomposition in the couple's home.
Concrete in the coffin
According to investigators, the couple had set up a scam. While families entrusted the Hallfords with the body of their loved one to be buried or cremated, the corpses were actually kept in their homes as is.
In some cases, Jon and Carie Hallford did not hesitate to put a “dry concrete mixture” in the urn or in the coffin supposed to welcome the deceased to mask the deception.
With these misdeeds, the funeral home received more than 130,000 dollars, or nearly 125,000 euros, for false burials and so-called cremations. The scam allegedly lasted for four years.
Furthermore, the couple admitted to having defrauded in order to receive more than 800,000 dollars in aid, or nearly 768,000 euros, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Up to 20 years in prison
Jon and Carie Hallford pleaded guilty to all 191 counts of abuse of a corpse, but also to two bodies that were not buried properly.
Their sentence is not yet known and is due to be pronounced on April 18, 2025. Carie Hallford faces between 15 and 20 years in prison and her husband Jon Hallford 20 years in prison.
“This case was obviously an immense emotional ordeal for all the families present,” prosecutor Michael Allen argued in court on Friday, estimating that the victims' loved ones will “probably never recover” from this violation of the relationship of trust they thought they had with the funeral home.
Original article published on BFMTV.com
