What kind of person lets nearly 190 bodies rot in a bug-infested building—then hands grieving families fake ashes?
That’s the twisted reality behind Jon Hallford, owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, who was just sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
Hallford once claimed he opened the business to “make a positive impact.”
Instead, he left families with horror, heartbreak—and lies.
What Happened?
Between 2019 and 2023, bodies were found piled high in a decaying facility in Penrose, Colorado. Some were left for years.
The emotional fallout was gutting. “If I die too, I could meet my grandma in heaven,” young Colton Sperry told a judge.
His grandmother’s body had been left to decompose for four years.
To make it worse, Hallford blew nearly $900,000 in Covid relief funds and funeral payments on luxury cars, Gucci, laser body sculpting, and crypto.
“They dined while our loved ones rotted,” said victim Derrick Johnson, whose mother’s remains were among the abandoned.
While Hallford faces additional sentencing in a state case with 191 corpse abuse charges, co-owner Carie Hallford awaits her own day in court.
Funeral homes are supposed to honor the dead—not desecrate them.
