A couple who operated a so-called “green funeral home” in Colorado has been ordered by a court to pay $950 million to the families of victims, nearly a year after approximately 190 decaying corpses were discovered at their facility.
Shocking discovery at funeral home
The ruling, announced by the victims’ lawyer on Monday, comes after authorities found that Jon and Carie Hallford, owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colorado, had provided fake ashes to grieving families after claiming to conduct ‘green burials’ for their loved ones.
In October 2023, after reports of a foul smell from their green funeral home, 190 bodies or body parts were recovered by investigators in a case that shocked America.
The Halfords promoted their services as environmentally friendly, avoiding the use of chemicals like embalming fluids and using biodegradable caskets. However, the discovery of the decaying bodies revealed the fraudulent nature of their operations. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assisted in the painstaking task of identifying the remains through DNA testing, but several bodies could not be identified.
Court proceedings and charges
Jon Hallford, currently in custody, and his wife Carie, who is out on bail, did not attend the court proceedings. They face criminal charges including corpse abuse, theft, money laundering, and forgery. State prosecutors have offered a plea deal on 190 counts of corpse abuse, but an agreement has not yet been reached.
Despite the court’s ruling, it is highly unlikely that the Hallfords will be able to pay the victims’ families due to their financial difficulties. Crystina Page, who used the funeral home’s services to cremate her son in 2019, was devastated to learn she had been given fake ashes. “I’m never going to get a dime from them, so, I don’t know, it’s a little frustrating,” Page told the Associated Press.
Legislative changes
In the wake of this macabre episode, Colorado has introduced stricter legislation on the storage and disposal of dead bodies to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The victim’s family lawyer, Andrew Swan, expressed his desire for the Hallfords to testify about their actions. “I wanted to put them on the witness stand, have them put under oath, and ask them how they came to do this, not once, not twice, but hundreds of times.”