NAPLES, Italy (AP) — Napoli beat Cremonese 4-0 and sent it into the Serie A relegation zone on Friday.
Scott McTominay got the opener after three minutes with Kevin De Bruyne providing the assist, his first in Serie A since signing from Manchester City last summer.
De Bruyne got the third goal on the stroke of halftime with a close-range shot in a packed penalty box. Two minutes earlier, Danish forward Rasmus Højlund’s shot was deflected past his own goalkeeper by Filippo Terracciano to make it 2-0 for the home side.
Alisson Santos added the fourth early in the second half with a fine solo effort as Napoli overran its struggling opponent.
McTominay should have made it 5-0 seven minutes from time but Emil Audero got down brilliantly to save his penalty.
Cremonese dropped into third-to-last place, equal on points with Lecce but with an inferior goal difference.
Lecce can lift itself out the relegation zone with a point or a win on Saturday against joint-bottom side Verona.
Napoli, meanwhile, moved three points above AC Milan into second place. Inter Milan leads the league by nine points.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Napoli's Rasmus Hojlund takes a shot which deflected off a Cremonese player for an own goal during the Serie A soccer match between Napoli and Cremonese, Friday, April 24 , 2026, in Naples, Italy. (Alessandro Garofalo/LaPresse via AP)
Napoli's Scott McTominay celebrates scoring a goal during the Serie A soccer match between Napoli and Cremonese, Friday, April 24 , 2026, in Naples, Italy. (Alessandro Garofalo/LaPresse via AP)
Napoli's Scott McTominay scores a goal during the Serie A soccer match between Napoli and Cremonese, Friday, April 24 , 2026, in Naples, Italy. (Alessandro Garofalo/LaPresse via AP)
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A former funeral home owner who helped her ex-husband hide nearly 200 decomposing bodies faces sentencing Friday for corpse abuse in a case that prompted Colorado officials to clamp down on an industry plagued by repeated scandal and notoriously lax oversight.
A plea agreement calls for Carie Hallford to receive from 25 to 35 years in prison. Her ex-husband was sentenced to 40 years on corpse abuse charges at a February hearing in which he was called a “monster” by relatives of those whose bodies were left to rot.
Carie Hallford was the public face of Return to Nature, dealing with bereaved customers at the couple’s funeral home in Colorado Springs. Jon Hallford performed much of the physical work, including at a second location south of Colorado Springs in Penrose.
That's where authorities found bodies piled throughout a bug-infested building after neighbors in 2023 complained about a foul odor.
Among the remains was the mother of Tanya Wilson, who told District Judge Eric Bentley on Friday that the family released what they thought were her ashes from a boat in Hawaii. It turned out her body was lying in toxic fluids on the floor of the Hallfords’ makeshift mortuary. Like other Return to Nature customers, the family received fake ashes instead of the cremated remains they were promised.
They had prepared her mother's body for meeting her Korean ancestors in the afterlife, Wilson said. To preserve her dignity, they brushed her hair, applied her favorite moisturizer and dressed her in special clothes to preserve the dignity she had in life.
“Carie Hallford annihilated that dignity,” said Wilson.
Carie Hallford apologized prior to being sentenced Friday, saying she was raised to know right from wrong but had lost who she once was.
She fought back tears as she said her marriage had been “a convoluted web of lies, deceit and abuse." She said she was not a monster but deserved punishment.
Prosecutors have alleged the Hallfords were motivated by greed. They charged more than $1,200 per customer, and authorities said the amount they spent on luxury items would have covered the cremation costs many times over.
The case became the most egregious in a string of allegations involving Colorado funeral homes as details emerged about the their lavish spending and their pattern of defrauding customers.
Colorado had been the only state that did not regulate funeral homes before lawmakers adopted recent changes. The Hallfords' case prompted laws mandating routine inspections and adopting a funeral director licensing system.
Last year, state inspectors found 24 decomposing bodies and multiple containers of bones behind a hidden door of a funeral home owned by the Pueblo County coroner and his brother. It was the first ever inspection of that Pueblo mortuary.
Before the bodies were found in Penrose, a mother and daughter who operated a funeral home in the western Colorado city of Montrose were sentenced to federal prison after being accused of selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes. In 2024, authorities in Denver arrested a financially troubled former funeral home owner who kept a body in a hearse for two years at a house where police also found the cremated remains of at least 30 people.
Carie Hallford asked for leniency in March when she was sentenced in a related federal fraud case, saying she was a victim of abuse and manipulation in her marriage.
Her attorney, Michael Stuzynski, said Friday said Carie Hallford initially believed what happened at Return to Nature was entirely her fault. He said she had a “lonely, gray and terrifying existence” and found solace in the interactions she had with the funeral home’s customers.
But Chief Deputy District Attorney Rachael Powell said Jon Hallford couldn’t have carried out the crimes alone. While his actions were gruesome, Powell said, Carie Hallford was the one manipulating clients as she smiled and took their money, knowing she was lying to them.
“She solicited bodies and took the checks. She fed Jon the bodies,” Powell said.
The Hallfords, who divorced following their arrest, received prison sentences in the related federal fraud case — 18 years for Carie and 20 years for Jon. They have each appealed.
Plea agreements call for the Hallfords' state prison sentences to be served concurrently with the federal sentences. Family members of some victims objected to the plea agreements as too lenient.
Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Associated Press journalist Thomas Peipert contributed to this story.
Crystina Page, whose son's body was among nearly 200 found decomposing in a southern Colorado funeral home in 2023, is comforted at a memorial site for the victims in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Crystina Page, whose son's body was among nearly 200 found decomposing in a southern Colorado funeral home in 2023, holds samples of fake ashes that were given to families instead of human remains, at a memorial site in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Crystina Page, whose son's body was among nearly 200 found decomposing in a southern Colorado funeral home in 2023, looks at a set of memorial signs for the victims in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
FILE - This combination of booking photos provided by the Muskogee County, Okla., Sheriff's Office shows Jon Hallford, left, and Carie Hallford, owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home. (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)/The Gazette via AP)
