Colorado funeral home owner who abused nearly 200 corpses gets 40 years, decried as a 'monster'

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado funeral home owner who stashed 189 decomposing bodies in a building over four years and gave grieving families fake ashes was sentenced to 40 years in state prison Friday.

During the sentencing hearing, family members told Judge Eric Bentley they have had recurring nightmares about decomposing flesh and maggots since learning what happened to their loved ones.

They called defendant Jon Hallford a “monster” and urged the judge to give him the maximum sentence of 50 years.

Bentley told Hallford he caused “unspeakable and incomprehensible” harm.

“It is my personal belief that every one of us, every human being, is basically good at the core, but we live in a world that tests that belief every day, and Mr. Hallford your crimes are testing that belief,” Bentley said.

Hallford apologized before his sentencing and said he would regret his actions for the rest of his life.

“I had so many chances to put a stop to everything and walk away, but I did not,” he said. “My mistakes will echo for a generation. Everything I did was wrong.”

Hallford’s attorney unsuccessfully sought a 30 year sentence, arguing that it was not a crime of violence and he had no prior criminal record.

His former wife, Carie Hallford, who co-owned the Return to Nature Funeral Home, is due to be sentenced April 24. She faces 25 to 35 years in prison.

Both pleaded guilty in December to nearly 200 counts of corpse abuse under an agreement with prosecutors.

During the years they were stashing bodies, the Hallfords spent lavishly, according to court documents. That included purchasing a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti worth over $120,000 combined, along with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, pricey goods from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co. and laser body sculpting.

“Clearly this is a crime motivated by greed,” prosecutor Shelby Crow said. The Hallfords charged more than $1,200 per customer, and the money the couple spent on luxury items would have covered the cost to cremate all of the bodies many times over, Crow said.

The Hallfords also pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges after prosecutors said they cheated the government out of nearly $900,000 in pandemic-era small business aid. Jon Hallford was sentenced to 20 years in prison in that case, and Carie Hallford’s sentencing is pending.

A plea agreement in the corpse abuse case calls for the state prison sentence to be served concurrently with the federal sentence.

One of the family members who spoke at the hearing was Kelly Mackeen, whose mother's remains were handled by Return to Nature.

“I’m a daughter whose mother was treated like yesterday’s trash and dumped in a site left to rot with hundreds of others,” Mackeen said. “I’m heartbroken, and I ask God every day for grace.”

As she and others spoke of their grief, Jon Hallford sat at a table to their right, wearing orange jail attire and looking directly ahead. The courtroom’s wooden benches were full of relatives of the deceased and also journalists.

The Hallfords stored the bodies in a building in the small town of Penrose, south of Colorado Springs, from 2019 until 2023, when investigators responded to reports of a stench from the building.

Bodies were found throughout the building, some stacked on top of each other, with swarms of bugs and decomposition fluid covering the floors, investigators said. The remains — including adults, infants and fetuses — were stored at room temperature.

The bodies were identified over months with fingerprints, DNA and other methods.

Investigators believe the Hallfords gave families dry concrete that resembled ashes.

After families learned that what they received and then spread or kept at home were not actually their loved ones' remains, many said it undid their grieving process, while others had nightmares and struggled with guilt.

One of the recovered bodies was that of a former Army sergeant first class who was thought to have been buried at a veterans’ cemetery, FBI agent Andrew Cohen said.

When investigators exhumed the wooden casket at the cemetery, they found the remains of a person of a different gender inside, he said. The veteran, who was not identified in court, was later given a funeral with full military honors at Pikes Peak National Cemetery.

The corpse abuse revelations spurred changes to Colorado's lax funeral home regulations.

The AP previously reported that the Hallfords missed tax payments, were evicted from one of their properties and were sued for unpaid bills, according to public records and interviews with people who worked with them.

In a rare decision last year, Judge Bentley rejected previous plea agreements between the Hallfords and prosecutors that called for up to 20 years in prison. Family members of the deceased said the agreements were too lenient.

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

Angelika Stedman, who hired Return to Nature funeral home to cremate her daughter, speaks to a reporter outside of the El Paso County Courthouse in Colorado Springs, Colo., Friday, Feb. 6, 2026, ahead of the sentencing owner Jon Hallford. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

Derrick Johnson, whose mother's body was one of 189 left to decay in the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colo., walks toward the El Paso County Courthouse for owner Jon Hallford's sentencing in Colorado Springs, Colo., Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

Crystina Page, left, hugs Angelika Stedman outside of the El Paso County Courthouse in Colorado Springs, Colo., Friday, Feb. 6, 2026, ahead of the sentencing of Return to Nature funeral home owner Jon Hallford. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

FILE - Fremont County coroner Randy Keller, center, and other authorities survey the area where they plan to put up tents at the Return to Nature Funeral Home where over 100 bodies have been improperly stored, Oct. 7, 2023, in Penrose, Colo. (Parker Seibold/The Gazette via AP, File)

FILE - Chrystina Page, right, holds back Heather De Wolf, as she yells at Jon Hallford, left, the owner of Back to Nature Funeral Home, as he leaves with his lawyers following a preliminary hearing, Feb. 8, 2024, outside the El Paso County Judicial Building, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Christian Murdock/The Gazette via AP, File)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa's World Cup squad departed for the tournament a day late on Monday and left its assistant coach behind after problems securing travel visas for the United States.

South Africa plays co-host Mexico in the opening game of the World Cup on June 11 in Mexico City. It plays one of its group games in the U.S.

The team was due to depart on Sunday but that was delayed because it had not received visas for some players and staff members, the sports minister said.

Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie posted on X that the “debacle” over visas was caused by an administrative error by team officials and called it embarrassing. He demanded a report from the South African Football Association.

"We are being made to look like fools," McKenzie wrote on social media.

The association said on Monday it had secured visas for all the players and they departed from Johannesburg on a charter flight on Monday afternoon. However, SAFA President Danny Jordaan said assistant coach Helman Mkhalele was initially refused a visa by the U.S., with no reason given, and his travel documents were still outstanding.

“We hope that will also be resolved and all of our people will be going,” Jordaan told reporters at OR Tambo International Airport.

SAFA apologized for the 24-hour delay and said it received help from the South African Foreign Ministry and the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg to resolve the visa problems.

South Africa will play at the World Cup for the first time since hosting in 2010. It also faces the Czech Republic in Atlanta and South Korea in Monterrey, Mexico, in Group A. The squad will be based in the Mexican city of Pachuca and plays a final warmup game there against Jamaica on Friday.

South Africa's team management came under scrutiny for an administrative error in World Cup qualifying when midfielder Teboho Mokoena played in a game against Lesotho despite being suspended. South Africa was stripped of its victory, threatening its hopes of qualifying.

The team overcame that to qualify top of its group by one point.

AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

FILE - South Africa players pose for a team photo before the Africa Cup of Nations group B soccer match between Angola and South Africa in Marrakech, Morocco, Monday, Dec. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)

FILE - South Africa players celebrate their side's third goal during a World Cup 2026 group C qualifying soccer match between South Africa and Rwanda at Mbombela Stadium, in Nelspruit, South Africa, Oct. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)

FILE - South Africa players celebrate after a World Cup 2026 group C qualifying soccer match between South Africa and Rwanda at Mbombela Stadium, in Nelspruit, South Africa, Oct. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)

FILE - South Africa's Oswin Appollis celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during a World Cup 2026 group C qualifying soccer match between South Africa and Rwanda at Mbombela Stadium, in Nelspruit, South Africa, Oct. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alfonso Nqunjana, File)