5 key details about Jon and Carie Hallford's crimes

Season 1 episode 3 of The Curious Case of… on Investigation Discovery will replay the crimes executed by Jon and Carie Hallford.

Jon and Carie Hallford, the founders of The Return to Nature Funeral Homes, were charged with multiple state and federal crimes which included corpse abuse, theft, money laundering, and forgery, to which they pleaded guilty in 2023.

The statewide scandal began way back in 2019 when they allegedly stacked corpses in a facility in Penrose, falsified death certificates, and misspent COVID-19 relief funds.

The episode focusing on the aforementioned case is titled The Funeral Home of Horrors. It will air on February 3, 2025, at 10 pm ET on ID.

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5 important details surrounding Jon and Carie Hallford’s crimes

1) The Return to Nature Funeral Home was the subject of a multi-agency inquiry

An investigation began after the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office received a report from a neighbor about a foul odor coming from a demolished building in Penrose on October 3, 2023. A search warrant was immediately ordered and was granted on October 4, 2023.

As per CNN News, investigators discovered 190 bodies at the Return to Nature Funeral Home, out of which 110 could be identified. Subsequently, 25 bodies were released and returned to their loved ones.

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2) The misuse of the corpses by Jon and Carie Hallford

Carie and Jon Hallford established HALLFORDHOMES, LLC in 2016, under which Return to Nature was created in 2017. Their business offered cremations and natural burials, in which a person's remains are deposited without embalming so that they decay in the soil. The Hallfords did nothing with the many bodies they received, instead allowing the human remains to rot in storage at their Penrose facility.

On at least two occasions, they gave the incorrect body for a ceremony and buried a different person's remains without alerting the next of kin.

An unsealed affidavit stated that the corpses were found spread over the room, and surveillance cameras caught Jon manipulating a corpse like a sandbag.

The same affidavit also reported that buckets were placed beneath some corpses to collect fluids. Nearly 40 bodies had been piled on top of each other, with some put in storage bins.

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3) The fake ashes and falsified certificates

Jon and Carie Hallford were paid to bury or cremate loved ones. However, they pocketed the money and distributed dry concrete in place of the deceased individual's ashes. Jon and Carie Hallford falsified death certificates and issued them as proof of the cremation.

According to the Associated Press, none of the victims' families received identifying tags or certificates proving the authenticity of their cremations. The families of four fatalities had described the ashes as having the consistency of dried concrete.

Return to Nature handled the cremation of Wesley Ford, who died in April 2023. When his wife Stephanie learned of the grisly finding at the funeral home, her daughter examined the ashes and said:

“Mom, that’s not dad.”

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4) Fraudulent schemes carried out by Jon and Carie Hallford

Following the discovery of the bodies, investigators uncovered a scheme in which, the couple had been defrauding customers by offering cremations and natural burials. The funeral home charged customers $1,895 for a natural burial and ceremony and $1,290 for a cremation.

The Hallfords admitted to collecting more than $130,000 from victims for the cremation or burial services which they never performed, as per CBS News.

According to the indictment, they allegedly planned to provide fraudulent information to the United States Small Business Administration to get SBA loans under the Paycheck Protection Program during the pandemic. The Paycheck Protection Program is a provision of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

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5) Jon and Carie Hallford are slated to be sentenced in 2025

The Hallfords have also been accused of making fraudulent claims to the Small Business Administration to obtain three loans totaling $882,300. As reported by CBS News, they have each been charged with 10 counts of wire fraud for allegedly failing to bury or cremate deceased individuals despite receiving payment for these services from their families.

They are imprisoned on a federal warrant. Jon Hallford is being held at FCI Englewood, a federal detention facility near Denver, while Carie Hallford is being held at the Jefferson County Jail. The sentencing for their crimes is slated for 2025, with prison terms of up to 20 years.

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To learn more about this case, stream season 1 episode 3 of The Curious Case of… on ID. It airs on 3, 2025, at 10 pm ET.