COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KOAA) — One of the Return to Nature funeral home co-owners, Carie Hallford, appeared in an El Paso County courtroom Monday as a judge decided not to accept a plea deal on her state case.
Hallford is accused of abusing nearly 200 bodies in partnership with her husband at the time, Jon Hallford. The alleged crimes took place over a time span ranging from 2019 - 2023.
News5 has been extensively covering the case since it first broke in 2023. In August, Carie Hallford's husband, Jon, was in court for a similar hearing, where, after hours of victim testimony, Judge Eric rejected that plea deal, and Hallford would go on to change his plea from guilty to not guilty at a follow-up hearing in September.
In court on Monday, the families of the victims involved in the case gave their arguments about why the plea deal should be rejected. The deal would have seen a 15 to 20-year sentence for Hallford.
More than a dozen family members spoke in court Monday morning, arguing Carie Hallford was just as responsible for their loved ones' bodies being improperly stored. For many of them, she was considered the face of the operation.
"I’ll go so far as to even say that she was the brains behind the operation," Tanya Wilson, whose mother was among the bodies found inside the Penrose funeral home, said "and he [Jon Hallford] was the muscle or the brawn. She was the one that spoke to all of us, handed us the fake ashes, lied to our faces."
Wilson, who has traveled from Georgia for multiple hearings said she felt it was important for the court to hear the role Carie Hallford played.
Judge Eric Bentley felt the same and agreed with the families rejecting the plea deal. This means Carie Hallford's state case will now head to a trial, but not for almost another a year. Defense attorneys had scheduling conflicts saying the earliest they could go to trial would be in September. The trial is now scheduled for Oct. 6 2026.
"That just really shocked me and really just draws it out so much longer, and I was really upset with that, I couldn't believe it," Carol Prest, who used Return to Nature after her husband Thomas died said.
Jon Hallford is set to head to trial on February 9, 2026.
Both of the Hallfords have pleaded guilty and taken plea deals on their federal cases, which included charges of money laundering. Jon Hallford was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, a decision he has appealed. Carie Hallford is scheduled for sentencing in the federal case in December.
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