Jon and Carie Hallford pleaded guilty to corpse abuse after dozens of decaying bodies were found at their funeral home.
A couple who owned a funeral home at two locations in Colorado pleaded guilty on Friday to multiple counts of corpse abuse, more than a year after 191 bodies were found decaying at their businesses in a horrific scene, the authorities said.
The couple, Jon and Carie Hallford, operated the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs and Penrose, Colo.
They agreed to facing 15 to 20 years in prison after they each pleaded guilty in El Paso County Court to 191 felony counts of abuse of a corpse, Michael Allen, the district attorney for the 4th Judicial District of Colorado, said at a news conference.
The Hallfords are scheduled to be sentenced in April.
Return to Nature advertised to families that their loved ones would be given green burials that included the use of biodegradable caskets, baskets or shrouds.
But when a foul odor led investigators to the Penrose location, they found at least 190 improperly stored corpses at the Hallfords’ funeral home in Penrose and Colorado Springs in October last year. They were arrested in November.
“The impact on these family members has been immense,” Mr. Allen said.
He added that the Hallfords deceived grieving families and that “having somebody violate that trust is something that they’ll likely never recover from.”
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
