A husband and wife who owned a Colorado funeral home were arrested in Oklahoma on Wednesday in connection to the improper handling of at least 190 bodies that had been left in their care, the authorities said.
The couple, Jon and Carie Hallford, were operating the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs and Penrose, Colo., which offered so-called green burial options.
The services advertised on the business’s website featured burials without chemicals or concrete vaults, which included placing bodies in biodegradable caskets, baskets, shrouds or “even nothing at all.”The Hallfords were arrested in Wagoner, Okla.
They had not been formally charged but were held on suspicion of committing abuse of a corpse, theft, money laundering and forgery, all felony charges, according to a statement from the Fourth Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Colorado Springs.
District Attorney Michael J. Allen said at a news conference on Wednesday that the probable-cause affidavit in the case had been sealed but added, “The information contained in that affidavit is absolutely shocking.”
Persons:
Jon, Carie Hallford, Michael J, Allen
Organizations:
Fourth
Locations:
Colorado, Oklahoma, Colorado Springs, Penrose, Colo, Wagoner, Okla