An proprietor of a Colorado funeral house accused of abandoning almost 200 our bodies in a constructing for years was nervous way back to 2020 about getting caught, a prosecutor stated Thursday at a listening to the place the prosecution objected to decreasing his bond.
“My one and solely focus is protecting us out of jail,” stated one textual content message allegedly written by Jon Hallford {that a} prosecutor learn in courtroom.
Arguing for sustaining a excessive bond for Hallford, Senior Deputy District Lawyer Rachael Powell stated Hallford wrote that textual content in Could of 2020. A few of the decomposing human stays within the Return to Nature Funeral Dwelling facility within the Rocky Mountain city of Penrose had been labeled as courting to 2019, 4 years earlier than the our bodies’ discovery by authorities this previous October.
In November, police arrested Hallford and his spouse, Carie Hallford, in Oklahoma after they allegedly fled Colorado to keep away from prosecution. They’re accused of abusing corpses, stealing, laundering cash and forging paperwork and had been jailed on $2 million bond.
Decide William Moller lowered bond Thursday for Jon Hallford to $100,000 and stated he could be required to put on a GPS monitor, if launched, to trace his whereabouts. Carie Hallford’s subsequent courtroom look is about for Jan. 11.
In one other textual content message learn by Powell in courtroom, Hallford allegedly wrote in October 2020: “I am going to jail, which might be what’s going to occur,” Powell stated.
Moller de-emphasized the textual content messages’ relevance, nonetheless, saying he didn’t have the total context wherein they had been written.
“It’s tough for me to make a discovering primarily based on a textual content message that’s picked out from a lot of them,” Moller stated.
Hallford is an honorably discharged U.S. Military veteran with no vital prior convictions, his legal professional, Adam Steigerwald, identified.
Return to Nature Funeral Dwelling was primarily based in Colorado Springs and had a facility for storing stays in close by Penrose. A few of the Rocky Mountain city’s 4,000 residents reported foul odors coming from the constructing earlier than authorities went in and located the corpses.
Each Hallfords are charged with roughly 190 counts of abuse of a corpse, 5 counts of theft, 4 counts of cash laundering and over 50 counts of forgery.
The invention of our bodies prompted an effort to determine them utilizing fingerprints, dental information, medical {hardware} and DNA. With their work on the scene wrapping up, officers plan to stage the constructing in coming weeks.
How so many our bodies allegedly got here to be mishandled stays unknown to the broader public whereas protection attorneys object to unsealing affidavits within the case.
A number of who employed Return to Nature to cremate family members have advised The Related Press that the FBI confirmed that their stays had been among the many decaying our bodies. Return to Nature gave a few of them substitute supplies that weren’t their family members’ ashes, prosecutors allege.
Jon Hallford is being represented by the Colorado public defender’s workplace, which doesn’t touch upon instances to the media. Carie Hallford is represented by legal professional Michael Stuzynski, who likewise has declined to touch upon the case.
Carie Hallford is scheduled to seem in courtroom individually subsequent week.
In December, relations who knew or feared their family members had been among the many deserted our bodies watched in particular person for the primary time as Hallfords appeared earlier than a choose. One lady held up a photograph of her late son whom she thought might have been among the many mishandled our bodies.
Return to Nature began in 2017 and supplied cremations and “inexperienced” burials with out embalming fluids. The house owners missed tax funds, had been evicted from one among their properties and had been sued for unpaid payments by a crematory that give up doing enterprise with them nearly a 12 months in the past, based on public information and interviews with individuals who labored with them.
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