DENVER (AP) — A former Colorado funeral home owner who helped her ex-husband hide nearly 200 decomposing bodies in a building is asking for leniency when she is sentenced Monday, saying she was a “scared and desperate mother” who was manipulated to keep the family business operating.
Carie Hallford, 48, faces up to 20 years in prison for taking over $130,000 from families for funeral services, including cremations, and often giving them urns full of concrete mix instead. In two cases, investigators found the wrong body was buried. In August, she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and admitted that she and her ex-husband Jon Hallford cheated customers and also defrauded the federal government out of nearly $900,000 in pandemic small business aid.
Carie Hallford decided to get a divorce after she was put back in jail in her state case in November 2024, which put her out of reach of her husband’s constant calls and texts and allowed the “fog in her mind from the years of abuse” to lift, according to a court filing by her lawyer, Robert Charles Melihercik.
Federal sentencing guidelines recommend prison time up to eight years since Carie Hallford didn't have a criminal history. But lawyers for the government are asking U.S. District Judge Nina Y. Wang to sentence her to 15 years, in part for taking advantage of grieving people following one of the largest discoveries of decaying bodies at a funeral home in the U.S.
Those who entrusted their loved ones to the Hallfords struggled with guilt, shame, nightmares and panic attacks since the bodies were discovered in 2023. They were stacked so high in some places that they blocked doorways. There were bugs and maggots. Buckets had been placed to catch leaking fluids.
Prosecutors also want a longer sentence because the former couple, who had offered “green burials” without embalming, lavishly spent a pandemic-era small business loan on vehicles, cryptocurrency, pricey goods from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co. and laser body sculpting rather than on their Return to Nature funeral home in Colorado Springs.
Carie Hallford is asking to be sentenced to eight years. In court documents, Melihercik, said Hallford's actions were motivated by “fear and severe anxiety.” He said Hallford's former husband used “classic instruments of domestic violence” to control her, including threatening at times to kill himself and her.
The lawyer who represented Jon Hallford in state court, Adam Steigerwald, declined to comment on the abuse allegations. The lawyer who represented him in federal court, Laura Suelau, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Some victims are not sympathetic to Carie Hallford, the public face of the business who met with families and assured them their loved ones would be treated with respect.
Emma Williams, whose family entrusted the Hallfords to take care of her father's remains in 2022, said Carie Hallford had a choice.
“She continued to stay with the business and take advantage of us out her own greed,” she said.
Crystina Page, whose son’s body was left at the funeral home after he was killed in 2019, said Carie Hallford spent four years “feeding the monster” by continuing to accept more business.
“She is just as guilty as he is, except that he couldn’t have done it without her bringing him the bodies,” Page said.
Carie Hallford says that much of the lavish spending of the government loan money was the result of “love-bombing” as Jon Hallford attempted to apologize to her. She urged her husband to buy a cremator with the loan money, but was too scared to force the issue, Melihercik said in the court filing.
“Although she will be behind bars for the next decade or more, she finally feels free,” Melihercik wrote. He also said a shorter sentence would allow Carie Hallford to be able to return to work and repay the money the couple took from their victims.
Carie Hallford is also facing 25 to 35 years in prison when she is sentenced in state court on related charges next month.
Jon and Carie Hallford each pleaded guilty in December to nearly 200 counts of corpse abuse in state court. The plea deals require their state and federal sentences to be served at the same time.
Jon Hallford was sentenced to 20 years in the federal case and 40 years in the state case. At his sentencing last month in the state case, he apologized and said he will 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.”
FILE- This image provided by the Muskogee County, Okla., Sheriff's Office shows Carie Hallford. (Muskogee County Sheriff's Office via AP, file)
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, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, in Penrose, Colo. (Parker Seibold/The Gazette via AP, File)
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is seeking more strategic clarity about the U.S. and Israel’s plans for Iran and when the conflict might end as the bloc weighs whether to send ships to help shore up security in the Persian Gulf.
“It is in our interest to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, and that’s why we are also discussing what we can do in this regard from the European side,” Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said Monday ahead of a meeting of the 27-nation bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels.
U.S. President Donald Trump has asked allies — including France, China, Japan, South Korea and Britain — to help secure the strait for global shipping.
Kallas said the EU could expand its Operation Aspides naval mission to protect shipping in the Red Sea up into the Persian Gulf, or it could form a “coalition of the willing” with member nations contributing military capacity on an ad hoc basis.
The war in Iran, sparked on Feb. 28 airstrikes by Israel and the U.S., has driven up energy prices worldwide, with brent crude up more than 40%. But the conflict has also disrupted the wider global supply chain beyond oil, affecting everything from pharmaceuticals from India, semiconductors from Asia and oil-derived products like fertilizers that come from the Middle East.
Cargo ships are stuck in the Gulf or making a much longer detour around the southern tip of Africa. Planes carrying air cargo out of the Middle East are grounded. And the longer the war drags on, the more likely that there will be shortages and price increases on a wide range of goods.
France has said it is working with countries — President Emmanuel Macron mentioned partners in Europe, India and Asia — on a possible international mission to escort ships through the strait but has stressed it must be when “the circumstances permit,” when fighting has subsided.
French senior officials, speaking anonymously on ongoing talks, said The Netherlands, Italy, and Greece had shown interest and that Spain might be involved in some way.
Outside the EU, the U.K. may also be part of it if they have some capabilities available, the officials said. They mentioned the Red Sea-focused Operation Aspides as a possible model for a naval mission to the Persian Gulf.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said it will be important for the U.S. and Israel to define “when they consider the military aims of their deployment to have been reached.”
He said before meeting his EU colleagues in Brussels that “we need more clarity here” from the U.S. and Israel.
At the same time, Wadephul said the Iranian government poses a significant danger to the region, the freedom of shipping and the global economy, and “this danger definitely must not continue.” He said he would back sanctions against those responsible for blocking the Strait of Hormuz, without elaborating.
Once there’s clarity on the U.S.-Israeli aims, Wadephul said it will be time to enter a phase in which “a security architecture for this whole region” is defined. He said that will also entail speaking to Iran.
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel said the EU remains uncommitted to any military action.
“The fact is, for the moment, the EU is not directly part of the situation. So we need to decide if we are going to be part or not. That’s an important decision," Bettel said.
Operation Aspides was formed to thwart attacks to shipping in the Red Sea by Somali pirates and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have yet to join the current fray. Saudi Aramco manages a pipeline network that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz to deliver oil to the Red Sea port city of Yanbu.
“If we want to have security in this region, then it would be easiest to actually already use the operation that we have in the region and maybe change a bit,” Kallas she said. “There is also talk of coalition of the willing in this regard, but we also need to see what could be the fastest to provide this opening for the Strait of Hormuz, but of course, as you can see, it’s not easy.”
The EU is anxious that a potential refugee crisis in Iran will develop if the war continues.
“Although for now, the conflict has not translated into immediate migratory flows toward the EU, what the future holds remains unclear and necessitates the full mobilization of every migration diplomacy tool we have at our disposal,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a statement Sunday.
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said that his country has been a staunch supporter of the U.S., but that it needs to “know as well what are the plans...in the region.”
He said U.S. allies in Europe want to understand Trump’s “strategic goals. What will be the plan?”
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Associated Press writers Geir Moulson in Berlin and Sylive Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.
Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul speaks with the media as he arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas speaks with the media as she arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
