Investigators who entered a Colorado funeral home where nearly 200 abandoned bodies were found encountered stacks of partially covered human remains, bodily fluids several inches deep on the floor, and flies and maggots throughout the building, an FBI agent testified on Thursday.
Prosecutors also revealed text messages sent between the funeral home’s owners showing they were under growing financial pressures and had fears that they would be caught for mishandling the bodies. As the bodies accumulated, one of the co-owners even suggested getting rid of them by digging a big hole and treating them with lye or setting them on fire, according to the texts.
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Twenty-three of the bodies had death dates from 2019 and 61 were from 2020, FBI agent Andrew Cohen said. The remains included adults, infants and fetuses. They were being stored at room temperature in a neglected building in the small Rocky Mountain town of Penrose, he said.
“It looked like something you’d like to forget but can’t,” Cohen said during a hearing for one of the funeral home’s co-owners.
Investigators also found animal remains and bags of packaged concrete, Cohen said. Some relatives of the deceased had received fake ashes rather than the cremated remains of their loved ones, prosecutors have said.
Police in November arrested the funeral home owners, Carie and Jon Hallford, in Oklahoma after the married couple allegedly had fled Colorado to avoid prosecution.
The bodies were discovered in early October after neighbors noticed a putrid smell. Near the squat building was a post office and a few scattered homes, spaced out between dry grass and empty lots with parked semitrailers.
The Hallfords are accused of abusing corpses, stealing, laundering money and forging documents over several years at the Return to Nature Funeral Home, which was based in Colorado Springs and stored remains in nearby Penrose.
They are each charged with approximately 190 counts of abuse of a corpse, five counts of theft, four counts of money laundering and more than 50 counts of forgery.
Carie Hallford’s attorney, Michael Stuzynski, did not immediately challenge the evidence from the scene that was presented by prosecutors, except to question cell phone data that prosecutors said placed Carie Hallford at the Penrose facility with her husband. The defense will have another chance to argue against the evidence during a hearing scheduled for next week.
Stuzynski said after the hearing that he could not talk about the case outside of court.
Jon Hallford remained in custody at the El Paso county jail on Thursday after his bond was lowered from $2m to $100,000 during a hearing last week. His attorney, Adam Steigerwald, did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment.
Several families who had hired Return to Nature to cremate their relatives have told the Associated Press that the FBI confirmed…
2024-01-11 21:55:51
Link from www.theguardian.com