'This is not an ordinary fraud case': Funeral home owner who stashed nearly 190 decaying bodies sentenced to 20 years in prison
Jon Hallford, owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in federal court last year. Separately, Hallford pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court and will be sentenced in August.
At Friday's hearing, federal prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence and Hallford's attorney asked for 10 years. Judge Nina Wang said that although the case focused on a single fraud charge, the circumstances and scale of Hallford's crime and the emotional damage to families warranted the longer sentence.
'This is not an ordinary fraud case,' she said.
In court before the sentencing, Hallford told the judge that he opened Return to Nature to make a positive impact in people's lives, 'then everything got completely out of control, especially me.'
'I am so deeply sorry for my actions,' he said. 'I still hate myself for what I've done.'
Hallford and his wife, Carie Hallford, were accused of storing the bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sending families fake ashes. Investigators described finding the bodies in 2023 stacked atop each other throughout a squat, bug-infested building in Penrose, a small town about a two-hour drive south of Denver.
The morbid discovery revealed to many families that their loved ones weren't cremated and that the ashes they had spread or cherished were fake. In two cases, the wrong body was buried, according to court documents.
Many families said it undid their grieving processes. Some relatives had nightmares, others have struggled with guilt, and at least one wondered about their loved one's soul.
Among the victims who spoke during Friday's sentencing was a boy named Colton Sperry. With his head poking just above the lectern, he told the judge about his grandmother, who Sperry said was a second mother to him and died in 2019.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NDTV
6 hours ago
- NDTV
US Man Fakes Death, Flees To Avoid Rape Charges. This Happens Next
A US man who faked his own death and fled to Scotland to evade justice has been convicted of rape following his extradition back to his home country. Nicholas Rossi, 38, was found guilty of the 2008 sexual assault of his then-girlfriend by a jury in Salt Lake City on Wednesday. Rossi was first detained in 2021 after checking himself into a hospital in the Scottish city of Glasgow with Covid-19. Medical staff and police identified him by comparing his tattoos with pictures of Rossi on an Interpol wanted notice. It soon emerged that Rossi, using the name Nicholas Alahverdian, had earlier faked his own death, creating an obituary stating he had died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was extradited back to the US in January 2024. During an appeal, Rossi claimed to be a victim of mistaken identity and that he was in fact an Irish orphan called Arthur Knight. He claimed he had been tattooed while comatose in the hospital and that his fingerprints had been modified. But the appeal against his removal was rejected. A judge found him to be "as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative," and approved his extradition. Following the conviction, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill praised Rossi's victim for her courage in taking the stand during the trial. "It's her courage, her resilience in coming forward... that was the key to this case," he said. Rossi now faces five years to life in prison, with his sentencing scheduled for October, the local Utah ABC affiliate reported. Rossi is also awaiting trial next month for another alleged rape in 2008.
India Today
17 hours ago
- India Today
'Save Gujarat University' protest amid corruption allegations, students seek audit
Members of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI), former syndicate members, and former students, are staging protests amid allegations of large-scale corruption at Gujarat University. The protesters, carrying posters and beating drums, accused the administration of irregularities in projects like the Rifle Club, Tennis Court, Convention Center, and Food Court. They have launched a "Save Gujarat University" campaign.A heavy police presence was deployed on campus as demonstrators sat outside Vice Chancellor Neerja Gupta's office, raising slogans and demanding an audit. They have given the VC a 72-hour ultimatum to act, including filing FIRs against those syndicate member Indravijay Singh Gohil alleged that Gupta had broken a fixed deposit of Rs 150 crore out of the university's Rs 240 crore reserve for the first time in its history. He also claimed that the VC was appointing retired ONGC employees, allegedly linked to her husband, on salaries ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 further alleged that a syndicate member had demanded Rs 75 lakh from a university head of department, and that there was a recording of the incident. He accused the university of handing over facilities to private agencies without tenders, citing the convention center renovation cost of Rs 35 crore—more than its original construction cost of Rs 30 crore—as an also questioned why academy receipts for the tennis court were issued under a private name, with the university taking only 30 per cent of the Congress chief spokesperson, Manish Doshi, backed the protesters, saying corruption had increased after the implementation of the University Act. "Land is being given to private agencies without tender. FIRs must be filed and an independent audit conducted so that the truth comes out," he Chancellor Neerja Gupta rejected all allegations. She said the university had acted within four days on the Rs 75 lakh bribe matter by securing the resignation of the syndicate member involved. However, she noted that the FIR will have to be filed by those from whom the money was the fixed deposit claim, Gupta said it was false and that "proof will be given" showing the fixed deposit amount remains denied handing over the sports academy to a private agency, explaining that tenders were invited but no bidders came forward, so the university runs it with outside coaching support. "70 percent of tennis court earnings go to coaching and maintenance; the remaining 30 percent goes to the university," she clarified that the convention center had been converted into Dhanvantri Hospital during Covid-19 and was now being restored as a convention hall at a cost of Rs 35 lakh, not Rs 35 crore. She dismissed the Rifle Club allegations as "AI-generated misinformation" and denied any Rs 5 lakh membership standoff continues, with protesters insisting on swift action and the university administration standing by its denials.- EndsMust Watch IN THIS STORY#Gujarat
NDTV
17 hours ago
- NDTV
Rhode Island Man Accused Of Faking His Own Death, Found Guilty Of Rape
Salt Lake: A Rhode Island man accused of faking his death and fleeing the United States to evade rape charges was found guilty Wednesday of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in his first of two Utah trials. A jury in Salt Lake County found Nicholas Rossi guilty of a 2008 rape after a three-day trial in which his accuser and her parents took the stand. The verdict came hours after Rossi, 38, declined to testify on his own behalf. He will be sentenced in the case on October 20 and is set to stand trial in September for another rape charge in Utah County. First-degree felony rape carries a punishment in Utah of five years to life in prison, said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill. 'We are grateful to the survivor in this case for her willingness to come forward, years after this attack took place,' Gill said in a statement Wednesday night. 'We appreciate her patience as we worked to bring the defendant back to Salt Lake County so that this trial could take place and she could get justice. It took courage and bravery to take the stand and confront her attacker to hold him accountable.' Utah authorities began searching for Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, when he was identified through a decade-old DNA rape kit in 2018. He was among thousands of rape suspects identified and later charged when the state made a push to clear its rape kit backlog. Months after he was charged in Utah County, an online obituary claimed Rossi had died on February 29, 2020, of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But police in his home state of Rhode Island, along with his former lawyer and a former foster family, cast doubt on whether he was dead. He was arrested in Scotland the following year while receiving treatment for COVID-19 after hospital staff in Glasgow recognized his distinctive tattoos from an Interpol notice. Rossi was extradited to Utah in January 2024 while insisting he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being framed. Investigators say they identified at least a dozen aliases Rossi used over the years to evade capture. He appeared in court this week in a wheelchair, wearing a suit and tie, and using an oxygen tank. Throughout the trial, prosecutors painted a picture of an intelligent man who used his charm to take advantage of a vulnerable young woman. She was living with her parents and recovering from a traumatic brain injury when she responded to a personal ad Rossi posted on Craigslist. They began dating and were engaged within about two weeks. On Monday, the woman described being asked to pay for their dates, cover Rossi's car repairs, lend him $1,000 so he wouldn't be evicted from his apartment, and take on debt to buy their engagement rings. He grew hostile soon after their engagement and raped her in his bedroom one night after she drove him home, she testified. The woman said dismissive comments from her parents convinced her not to go to the police at the time. She came forward a decade later after she saw him in the news and learned he was accused of another rape from the same year. Rossi's lawyers sought to convince the jury that his accuser built up years of resentment after he made her foot the bill for everything in their monthlong relationship. They argued she accused him of rape to get back at him years later, when he was getting media attention. Attorneys for Rossi did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment after the verdict on Wednesday night. Rossi's accuser in the Utah County case did, however, go to the police at the time. She took the stand on Tuesday to testify about her own experiences with Rossi, though he will not stand trial for that rape charge until next month. Rossi is accused of attacking the second woman, another former girlfriend, at his apartment in Orem in September 2008 after she came over to collect money she said he stole from her to buy a computer. When police initially interviewed Rossi, he claimed she had raped him and threatened to have him killed. Rossi grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island and had returned there before allegedly faking his death. He was previously wanted in the state for failing to register as a sex offender. The FBI has said he also faces fraud charges in Ohio, where he was convicted of sex-related charges in 2008. (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
