Co-owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, Jon Hallford, will be in El Paso County Court on Friday, Aug. 22 for a sentencing hearing on 191 counts of corpse abuse. Hallford already entered a guilty plea on federal fraud charges in June 2025 and received the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for cheating customers and defrauding the federal government out of nearly $900,

One of the co-owners of the Return to Nature funeral home will be sentenced on state charges Friday. Jon Hallford was arrested in 2023 after investigators found nearly 200 bodies improperly stored at the funeral home in Penrose.

Nearly 200 decaying bodies were mishandled by Jon and Carie Hallford at Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado. Families were deceived, thinking loved ones were cremated, receiving concrete instead.

Colorado Springs' Return to Nature Funeral Home promised dignified cremations with no embalming or chemicals. Instead, Jon and Carie Hallford piled nearly 200 bodies in a the fetid, bug-infested building and handed families urns of concrete dust.