A couple accused of abandoning nearly 200 bodies at a Colorado funeral home they owned said they used the money to pay for cremations and burials, including a vehicle, virtual currency, a $1,500 dinner in Las Vegas and other personal items. be done.
FBI agent Andrew Cohen told a packed courtroom Thursday that John and Carrie Hallford bought a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti for more than $120,000 with payments from family members, according to the Associated Press. I testified. The amount was enough to cover the cost of two cremations for bodies found in advanced stages of decomposition at the company’s storage facility in Penrose.
John’s lawyer, Adam Steigerwald, said prosecutors have not proven that the funds from their business accounts were used to hide the source of the funds, which would not constitute a money laundering charge. He insisted that he would not. He also said the couple used funding from the federal Small Business Administration to buy Yukon.
Cohen said the Yukon purchase money, which he received as a pandemic-era small business loan adjustment, was fraudulently obtained after John lied about not being behind on child support payments.
Colorado funeral home owner seeks compensation after 190 decomposed bodies were discovered
Pictured here are John Hallford (left) and Carrie Hallford (right), owners of Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office, via AP, File)
Testimony about the couple’s extravagant behavior came during a hearing in which a judge ruled that prosecutors had presented enough evidence to show that John should stand trial. It had previously been decided that Carey would also stand trial.
John and Carey were arrested in Oklahoma in November, each charged with 190 counts of abuse of a corpse, five counts of theft, four counts of money laundering, and more than 50 counts of forgery. Neither has yet entered a plea.
Colorado funeral home owner accused of abandoning nearly 200 bodies in court
At an earlier hearing for Carey, prosecutors presented text messages suggesting the Hallfords had tried to cover up financial hardship by leaving the bodies at the Penrose facility.
Cohen testified that the storage facility had makeshift refrigeration equipment, but it was not in use when the decomposing bodies were discovered in the maggot-infested building.
John and Carrie Hallford also had a commercial storage facility in Penrose, Colorado, where 190 decomposed bodies were discovered. (Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette, via AP, File)
Prosecutors said John was concerned about being arrested retroactively to 2020 and suggested dumping the body in a large pit before disposing of it with lye or setting it on fire.
“My sole focus is to keep us out of jail,” he wrote in a text message, prosecutors alleged.
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John was released from prison in late January on $100,000 bail, but Carey remains in jail on the same bond.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
