The owners of the Penrose funeral home where authorities found the decaying remains of 190 people, 80 of whom are still unidentified, are now in custody, officials in El Paso and Fremont counties announced Wednesday in a news conference.
Jon and Carie Hallford were arrested Wednesday in Wagoner, Oklahoma, on charges of abuse of a corpse, forgery, theft and money laundering, the attorney’s office said in a news release. The probable cause affidavit for the arrests is sealed, 4th Judicial District Attorney Michael J. Allen said in the news conference.
Their bonds are set at $2 million.
“I am relieved that criminal charges have been brought against the funeral home owner and a criminal investigation is proceeding,” Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement after the arrests. “I know this will not bring peace to the families impacted by this heart-wrenching incident but we hope the individuals responsible are held fully accountable in a court of law.”
Jon Hallford owns Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose in Fremont County, which specializes in green burials and cremations. The company, Hallfordhomes LLC, is based in Colorado Springs, Allen said.
The remains were found Oct. 4 by authorities responding to a report of an “abhorrent smell” inside the company’s decrepit Penrose building.
Officials initially estimated there were about 115 bodies inside, but the number later increased to 189 after they finished removing all the remains in mid-October; Fremont County Coroner Randy Keller in a news conference after the arrests Wednesday said the number of bodies found is now 190.
Of those found, authorities have identified 110 bodies through fingerprints, dental records and medical hardware; 80 bodies are still unidentified. Keller said they will move on to using DNA to identify the remaining bodies.
The bodies of about 25 people have been released to loved ones, Keller said, and they have been in contact with about 137 families involved with the funeral home.
It’s not clear why the Hallfords were in Oklahoma at the time of their arrest.
Allen in the news conference declined to give any information on why the couple was in Oklahoma or what agency arrested them, but the Tulsa World reported that Jon Hallford is from Oklahoma and previously worked as the funeral director at his family’s funeral home there.
Jon Hallford apparently worked at Foster-Petering Funeral Home in Muskogee, which does not appear to be in operation anymore, and a funeral home in Tulsa, according to online court records from a 2006 civil debt relief suit. Jon Hallford had wages garnished from both funeral homes, as well as from Walgreens and a health care services company.
His apprentice-level license with the Oklahoma Funeral Board expired in 2004 upon his graduation, according to the funeral board’s website. No license after that appears on the state’s website.
A man who answered the phone at the Muskogee County jail in Oklahoma confirmed Wednesday morning to The Denver Post that Jon Hallford is being held there but later said there was an FBI hold, so he couldn’t give any more information about him or if Carie Hallford was at the jail as well.
The Hallfords couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. Neither has a listed personal phone number and the Penrose funeral home’s number no longer works, the Associated Press reported.
After the odor was reported, Hallford acknowledged to state regulators that he had a “problem” at the Penrose property, according to an Oct. 5 license suspension order, and claimed to practice taxidermy at the location. He then “attempted to conceal the improper storage of human remains.”
The funeral home had already been the subject of several legal troubles before the discovery of the bodies.
On Oct. 1, the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office declared the business license delinquent for failure to file a routine reporting form; an El Paso County judge in June ruled Hallford and his company owed more than $21,000 to a funeral services company; and in 2019, a couple sued Hallford and his wife for failure to pay rent.
The Associated Press reported they were evicted from one of their properties and were sued for unpaid bills by a crematory that quit doing business with them almost a year ago, according to public records and interviews with people who worked with them.
The discovery also shined a spotlight on the state’s lax oversight of funeral homes and crematories. Colorado remains the only state in the country that doesn’t license funeral directors or require some certification.
State officials don’t regularly inspect funeral homes and only devote one-quarter of one full-time position to regulate 220 funeral homes and 77 crematories.
There’s no indication state regulators visited Penrose or contacted Hallford until more than 10 months after the Penrose funeral home’s registration expired in November 2022, according to AP.
Colorado lawmakers and the Colorado Funeral Directors Association said it’s long past time to close loopholes in Colorado’s regulatory framework.
Since the discovery of the bodies, a lawsuit has been filed against the Hallfords and Hallfordhomes LLC. A second lawsuit was filed Thursday, according to online court records.
Authorities in the case are asking anyone who has worked with the funeral home since September 2019 to use the FBI’s victim information form, bit.ly/47mjWmO, to contact them.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
