EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. — In a rare move, an El Paso County judge on Friday rejected a plea agreement for Jon Hallford, who, with his wife, allegedly let roughly 190 bodies rot inside the Return to Nature funeral home south of Colorado Springs and sent fake ashes to grieving families.
Hallford would have likely been sentenced to 20 years in prison as part of the deal after pleading guilty to 191 counts of abuse of a corpse, a Class 6 felony. His sentence in the Department of Corrections would have run concurrent to — or at the same time as — the federal sentence of 20 years that he previously received.
Judge Eric Bentley, though, decided he “could not accept” the agreement after hearing from more than a dozen victims in court Friday calling for a harsher punishment.
“I was stunned by the articulate nature and the heartbreaking nature of what I heard this morning,” Bentley said. “It's hard to find words to describe the conduct of the defendant that violated every norm of a civilized society and victimized grieving people at their moment of greatest vulnerability, in a way that victims cannot readily recover from when trust is betrayed like that in that moment of vulnerability.”
- Denver7's Colette Bordelon has covered this case extensively and has the latest in the video player below:
Rejecting a plea agreement, Bentley said, is “reserved for the most extreme cases.” He said he has never granted a request to reject a plea during his nine years as a judge and over the course of hundreds of plea deals — but he was moved to do so in this case after he listened to victims who felt as though they were not heard in the plea deal process.
“I heard an overwhelming perception that the justice that had been worked out between the attorneys was justice that didn't accurately reflect the truth of the victim's experience,” Bentley said.
The charges in Hallford's case date back to 2023, when an investigation into the funeral home was launched after reports of a horrific odor coming from the building along Highway 115 in Fremont County.
According to testimony during a preliminary hearing, the earliest date of death found within the funeral home was Sep. 15, 2019, and the most recent date of death was Aug. 22, 2023.
The judge on Friday said there are 191 named victims in this case, adding there are more than a thousand other potential victims. Bentley reserved judgment on the plea deal until the sentencing hearing.
Before the judge called for victim impact statements ahead of sentencing the defendant, he wanted to hear from those impacted by the case who did not agree with the terms of the plea deal. However, he made a comparison before they spoke, telling the gallery that objecting to this deal was like "opening Pandora's Box" when it comes to how this case proceeds.
Both prosecutors and defense attorneys told the judge they believed the 20-year sentence was the appropriate resolution to this case. Chief Deputy District Attorney Rachael Powell added that abuse of a corpse is considered a Class 6 felony in Colorado, which is the lowest category of felony crimes.
Meanwhile, defense attorneys claimed the answers families are searching for "sadly are not satisfactory."
One of the people opposed to the deal who addressed the judge was Tanya Wilson. Her mother, Yong Anderson, passed away in June 2023 and the family hired Return to Nature Funeral Home.
"I felt like today was our last chance to be able to really fight for for justice — for my mom," Wilson said. "Especially in light of recent events, with the Pueblo case too, this is going to set this precedent. So, I felt like today really was important in that sense."
Wilson said she practiced her statement to the judge many times, revising it roughly 15 times. She told the judge watching her mother die was the hardest thing she has ever done, and the family believed they spread her ashes in Hawaii.
They returned home, grieving but at peace. Wilson told the judge "that peace shattered with Penrose."
Wilson learned her mother was among the decedents discovered at Return to Nature Funeral Home. She called the allegations a deliberate and ongoing operation.
"They were stacking up dollars as they went and stacked up bodies," Wilson said in court.
One of the central issues by those opposed to the plea bargain was the state sentence running concurrently with the federal sentence — since the two were both 20 years.
"It was just too big and too egregious and impacted way too many people for it to be wrapped up in a little tiny plea deal," Wilson said after the hearing. "It was a paper sentence. 20 years to be concurrent with the federal sentence? It didn't mean anything to us."
Wilson was relieved when the judge announced he would be rejecting the plea deal.
"Basically, he told us that our loved ones matter and justice matters. It's probably the first time since all this started that I felt like the families have been heard," said Wilson.
The decision to reject the plea agreement was met with mixed emotions. When the judge rejected the plea deal, several people clapped and gasped — there were also tears from Samantha Naranjo, who hoped this would be the last day of the case.
"It didn't feel like we were going to come here to get justice. But at the same time, I wanted it to wrap up," Naranjo explained outside of the courthouse. "It's been such a heartbreaking thing to deal with, like having to be retraumatized every time we come to court and we deal with this or seeing him in court — I didn't want to have to see him again."
When Naranjo's grandmother, Dorothy Tardif, died in 2022, the family used Return to Nature Funeral Home. Naranjo said it was powerful to hear the judge acknowledge the likelihood that there are hundreds more victims in this case who were never identified.
"He has really taken that into consideration. And I think that was just a very powerful move, to acknowledge that 20 years is not going to be acceptable," Naranjo said. "I feel heard. I feel all 1,178 victims were heard today. They were represented on a bigger scale than just the paperwork being pushed under the rug for 20 years."
Still, Naranjo is nervous about what could happen with Hallford's case.
"I'm nervous that he could end up with just probation. I'm nervous that it could come down to one count for all of it," Naranjo said, listing some examples of outcomes.
The sentencing range for an abuse of a corpse charge in Colorado is one year to 18 months in prison. Several of those opposed to the plea deal said they would be satisfied with the maximum sentence on each of those 191 counts — and Naranjo agreed.
"I'm hopeful that with his decision today, that it outlines what we might be looking at for sentencing," Naranjo said. "My hope is that we get at least 18 months per body, and that would be enough justice for me."
Hallford’s next hearing in the case is set for Sept. 12, where the defendant could decide to withdraw his guilty plea. In theory, the case could go to trial on all 286 charges, including abuse of a corpse, money laundering, theft, and forgery.
Hallford is already serving 20 years in his federal fraud case after misspending nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 pandemic relief funds.
His wife, Carie Hallford, changed her plea in the fraud case for a second time to guilty earlier this month and is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 3. Her sentencing in the state corpse abuse case has not been scheduled yet, as the intention is to work through the federal proceedings first.
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