The owners of a Colorado funeral home have been ordered to pay $950 million to the families of 190 victims whose bodies were found decaying inside.
The judge in a civil case ruled Monday that Return to Nature home in Penrose should pay grieving families who paid for cremation services and were given fake ashes while their bodies decomposed in a maggot-infested building.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]The couple allegedly took $130,000 from families for cremation and burial services that were never carried out. But the legal victory is largely a symbolic one as families may never see a payout.
The home’s founders, Jon and Carie Hallford—who are also facing hundreds of criminal charges in separate federal and state cases—have long been facing financial ruin. They had missed tax payments and were evicted from the home in 2023.
“If nothing else […] the judgment will bring more understanding to the case,” Crystina Page, a mother who hired the home to cremate her deceased son in 2019, told the Associated Press. “I’m hoping it’ll make people go, ‘Oh, wow, this isn’t just about ashes.’”
Jon is a multi-generational funeral home owner with 19 years of experience in the industry, according to KRDO, a local radio station. The couple opened the Return to Nature home in May 2016, touting it as a place for environmentally conscious burials that use no chemicals or embalming fluids, and opt for biodegradable caskets. Green funerals are legal in Colorado but bodies must be buried within a 24 hour window, or else refrigerated.
Fremont County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation into Return to Nature on Oct. 4, after an odor coming from the home led officials to the site. When investigators discovered more than 100 bodies stacked at the home, the couple allegedly fled Colorado to escape prosecution.
They were later arrested in Oklahoma in November and charged with multiple counts of money laundering, forgery, theft, and abuse of a corpse. Jon remains in custody, while Carie has received bail but did not show up to hearings for the civil case.
Andrew Swan, a class action’s attorney for the families of the victims, said he hoped the case would compel the Halfords to court.
“I would have preferred that they participate,” Swan said, “if only because 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.”
Colorado has lenient regulations for funeral homes compared to other states. But the case of the Halfords has played a role in passing new legislation to license funeral workers in the state. From 2026, funeral home operators will be required to hold a degree in mortuary science and undertake a one-year apprenticeship, as well as pass exams and background checks.
