Return to Nature Funeral Home: Sentences, Judgment, and Reform

Return to Nature Funeral Home was a Colorado business whose owners, Jon and Carie Hallford, stored nearly 190 decomposing bodies at a facility in Penrose instead of cremating or burying them as families had paid them to do. The scheme was discovered in October 2023, led to hundreds of state and federal criminal charges, and ended with Jon Hallford sentenced to 40 years in state prison and Carie Hallford to 30 years, plus lengthy federal terms for stealing nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 relief funds. The scandal also pushed Colorado, long the least regulated state for funeral services, to overhaul its oversight of the industry.

What Investigators Found in Penrose

On the night of October 3, 2023, Fremont County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a report of a suspicious incident at a building on Werner Road in Penrose, south of Colorado Springs. Residents had noticed a foul smell for months and had generally attributed it to dead animals or septic problems. Deputies returned with a search warrant the next day and found decomposing human remains throughout the property.¹

Over the next ten days, recovery teams from the Fremont County Coroner’s Office, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and the FBI pulled bodies out of the building. By October 13, 2023, at least 189 individuals had been recovered and transported to the El Paso County Coroner’s Office for identification.² The remains were in such poor condition that identification required DNA testing, dental records, and fingerprints, a process officials said could take months.³ Fremont County declared an official disaster to marshal resources for the effort.

How the Fraud Worked

Jon and Carie Hallford opened Return to Nature around 2017, marketing it as an eco-friendly alternative to traditional funeral services. Natural burials without chemical embalming were priced at $1,895, and direct cremation packages started at $1,290. The pitch included planting a tree in honor of each deceased person and using biodegradable urns.⁴ Carie Hallford was the public face, meeting with families and handling payments. Jon Hallford handled transport and operations at the Penrose facility, which the couple’s LLC bought in 2021 for $200,000.⁵

For many families, no cremation or burial took place. Instead of ashes, they received urns filled with what investigators and recipients described as dry concrete. Several families reported that the substance solidified when mixed with water, unlike genuine cremated remains, which are brittle bone fragments. The material was unusually fine and dark and arrived without the identification tags reputable crematories use for chain of custody.⁶

To cover for the missing cremations, the Hallfords filed false death certificates with Colorado’s Electronic Death Registry, listing legitimate crematories as having done the work. Wilbert Funeral Services had performed cremations for Return to Nature for a time but stopped doing business with the Hallfords in November 2022. At least ten families still received death certificates dated after that cutoff listing Wilbert as the crematory, and Wilbert’s attorney confirmed the company had not performed those cremations.⁶ One family received a 2021 certificate naming Roselawn Funeral Home in Pueblo, which also confirmed it had not done the cremation.⁷

The business was in financial trouble for years before the discovery. Wilbert won a $21,000 judgment against Return to Nature in June 2023 for unpaid cremation fees covering hundreds of cremations.⁸ The funeral home faced a forced eviction and owed unpaid taxes. Its state registration expired in November 2022, yet it continued to operate and take payments from families for nearly another year.⁹

The Hallfords’ Sentences

The Hallfords were prosecuted on two tracks and pleaded guilty in both.

Federal Wire Fraud and Stolen COVID Relief

In April 2024, a federal grand jury in the District of Colorado indicted both Hallfords on 13 counts of wire fraud and 2 counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors alleged the couple collected more than $130,000 from families between September 2019 and October 2023 for services that were never performed.¹⁰

The indictment also charged them with defrauding the U.S. Small Business Administration. The Hallfords obtained three Economic Injury Disaster Loan disbursements totaling $882,300 in COVID-19 relief, certifying falsely that they were not engaged in illegal activity and that Jon Hallford was current on child support. He was more than 60 days delinquent under an Oklahoma court order.¹¹ Prosecutors said the stolen funds went to vacations, cryptocurrency, cosmetic procedures, and jewelry.¹²

Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Jon Hallford was sentenced on June 27, 2025, to 20 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $1,070,413.74 in restitution.¹² He filed an appeal with the Tenth Circuit in July 2025 seeking a shorter sentence; officials have said the appeal could take years to resolve.¹³ Carie Hallford was sentenced on March 16, 2026, to 18 years in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and the same restitution amount.

State Corpse Abuse, Forgery, and Money Laundering

In state court, the Hallfords faced more than 250 felony charges, including 191 counts of abuse of a corpse along with forgery, theft, and money laundering. The road to a plea was rocky. In August 2025, El Paso County District Judge Eric Bentley rejected an initial deal for Jon Hallford that would have capped his sentence at 20 years. In November 2025, the judge rejected a deal for Carie Hallford that would have resulted in 15 to 20 years. Families protested both proposed terms as too lenient.¹⁴

New plea agreements were entered in December 2025. Jon Hallford agreed to a range of 30 to 50 years; Carie Hallford agreed to 25 to 35 years. Both pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse, money laundering, and forgery.¹⁵ Jon Hallford was sentenced on February 6, 2026, to 40 years in state prison.⁵ Carie Hallford was sentenced on April 24, 2026, to 30 years, which Judge Bentley called a “middle of the road” sentence within the agreed range. The judge acknowledged defense evidence that Carie Hallford had been a victim of domestic abuse by Jon Hallford, but said that did not excuse the harm she caused, noting that she had “knowingly lied” to grieving families and looked them in the eye while promising to care for their loved ones.¹⁶ Both state sentences run concurrently with the federal terms. The couple divorced after their arrest.⁴

The Civil Judgment

Families filed a class action against the Hallfords, HallfordHomes LLC, and Return to Nature Funeral Home, alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, fraud, and violations of the Colorado Consumer Protection Act. Neither defendant acknowledged the lawsuit or appeared at any hearings.¹⁷

On August 1, 2024, Fremont County District Judge Lynette Wenner entered a default judgment totaling $956,825,044.14. The judgment covered 125 listed families, each awarded roughly $7.6 million.¹⁸ The suit remains open so additional victims can come forward.¹⁷ Attorney Andrew Swan of Leventhal Lewis Kuhn Taylor Swan PC, who represented families pro bono, acknowledged the judgment is largely symbolic. The Hallfords had been in financial distress for years, and because their total assets remain unknown, there is no guarantee families will see significant compensation.

What Happened to the Penrose Building

After all remains were removed by October 13, 2023, agencies confirmed the building was contaminated with biohazardous and medical waste. The Fremont County Board of Health ordered the Hallfords to remediate the property within 24 hours. They failed to comply.¹⁹

The EPA conducted a removal action from April 15 to April 20, 2024. Workers disinfected the interior with peracetic acid, demolished the structure, removed the concrete foundation with a hydraulic hammer, and scraped the surface soil beneath the building’s footprint. All debris was hauled to a landfill, and the site was filled with clean soil.²⁰ A commemorative ceremony for families was held on April 16, 2024, as demolition began. Some families have expressed interest in a memorial at the site, though its future use remains undetermined.²¹

How Colorado’s Rules Let It Happen, and What Changed

The scandal exposed a striking gap in Colorado oversight. Colorado was the only state that did not require professional licensing for funeral home directors. From 1983 to 2009, there was no regulatory framework at all for funeral professionals. A business-registration system was created in 2009 but did not require proof of employee training, education, or experience. To operate, a person had only to be over 18 and have no criminal record.²² Return to Nature’s registration with the Department of Regulatory Agencies expired in November 2022, and DORA said it received no official complaints while the facility was registered. When the bodies were found, DORA issued a cease and desist order on October 5, 2023, but acknowledged its authority extended only to businesses, not to the individuals who ran them.⁹

Return to Nature was not Colorado’s first funeral home scandal. The Sunset Mesa case in Montrose, in which Megan Hess and Shirley Koch sold body parts without consent and shipped diseased remains falsely certified as disease-free, had already produced a 2022 bipartisan law giving the state authority to inspect funeral homes and a separate bill regulating non-transplant tissue banks.²³ Those reforms were not enough to catch what was happening in Penrose.

After the Return to Nature discovery, Governor Jared Polis signed three bills in 2024:

HB24-1335 mandated routine annual inspections of funeral homes and crematories and funded two full-time state inspectors, the first dedicated funeral home inspectors in Colorado’s history.²³
SB24-173 created a licensure structure for individual funeral professionals, including directors, embalmers, cremationists, and natural reductionists, requiring a mortuary science degree, a national board exam, a one-year apprenticeship, and a criminal background check. Mandatory licensure takes effect in 2027.²⁴
HB24-1254 prohibited funeral home owners from simultaneously owning a non-transplant tissue bank, closing a loophole exposed by Sunset Mesa.²³

The new inspection regime produced results quickly. On August 20, 2025, the newly hired DORA inspectors conducted a mandated annual inspection at Davis Mortuary in Pueblo and found 24 decomposing bodies and containers of bones hidden behind a cardboard display, some estimated to be at least 15 years old. The mortuary was owned by Brian Cotter, the elected Pueblo County Coroner, and his brother Chris Cotter. Governor Polis demanded Brian Cotter’s resignation, which took effect in September 2025.²⁵ The brothers were arrested in June 2026 and charged with 125 counts of abuse of a corpse along with multiple counts of forgery and theft. State Representative Matt Soper, who had sponsored multiple funeral reform bills, noted that Brian Cotter had personally participated in stakeholder meetings on the very reforms that led to his discovery. In 2026, Soper sponsored HB26-1258 to address remaining regulatory gaps in Colorado’s death care industry.²⁶

1
WTVR. Police Find at Least 115 Bodies at Return to Nature Green Funeral Home in Penrose, Colorado
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Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Fremont County Return to Nature Funeral Home Update
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ABC News. 200 Decomposing Bodies Removed From Funeral Home
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PBS NewsHour. Former Colorado Funeral Home Owner Gets 30-Year Prison Sentence in State Court
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The Guardian. Colorado Funeral Home Owner Sentenced to Prison
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CBS News. Colorado Funeral Home Bodies Fake Ashes
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WANE. After 189 Bodies Were Found in Colorado Funeral Home, Evidence Suggests Families Received Fake Ashes
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Colorado Sun. Return to Nature Funeral Home Investigation Update
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Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. Department of Regulatory Agencies Statement on Support for Funeral Home Investigation
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U.S. Department of Justice. Return to Nature Funeral Home Owners Charged With Defrauding Clients
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Courthouse News Service. United States v. Jon and Carie Hallford Indictment
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U.S. Department of Justice. Second Southern Colorado Funeral Home Operator Sentenced to 18 Years Federal Prison
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Colorado Politics. Return to Nature: Jon Hallford Appeals 20-Year Federal Prison Sentence
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Denver7. Judge Accepts Plea Deal in Return to Nature Funeral Home Case
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CBS News Colorado. Colorado Judge Accepts Hallfords’ Plea Deals in Funeral Home Case
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Fox 21 News. Former Funeral Home Owner Faces Sentencing for Corpse Abuse in Colorado
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Colorado Sun. Return to Nature Funeral Home Civil Case
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The Gazette. Nearly $1 Billion Judgment Against Return to Nature Funeral Home a Hollow Victory
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Canon City Daily Record. Environmental Protection Agency to Begin Clean Up Process of Penrose Funeral Home Property
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Penrose Funeral Home Removal Action
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Denver7. The EPA Will Begin to Demolish the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose Next Week
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Denver7. Two New Funeral Home Inspectors Are a First for Colorado
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CPR News. Three Bills to Regulate Colorado’s Funeral Industry Signed
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Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. Mortuary Science
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Forensic Magazine. 6 of 24 Bodies Identified in Mortuary Scandal Involving County Coroner
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KKCO 11. Davis Mortuary Owners Arrested After Regulatory Inspection Uncovered 24 Decomposing Bodies