Funeral home owners accused of storing nearly 200 decaying bodies to enter pleas

By JESSE BEDAYN
Associated Press/Report for America

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The owners of a Colorado funeral home where nearly 200 decaying bodies were found last year are set to enter pleas in court on Thursday. Jon and Carie Hallford are accused of falsifying death certificates and sending fake ashes to grieving families. Investigators say some of the 190 bodies languished for four years in a building southwest of Denver that had swarms of bugs and floors coated with decomposition fluids. It’s one of several cases to roil Colorado’s largely-unregulated funeral industry. Operators of a funeral home in western Colorado were convicted last year of selling body parts. In another recent case a deceased woman’s body was left in the back of a hearse for over a year.