Colorado funeral home owners accused of mishandling 190 bodies appear in court

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Relations who knew or feared their family members have been among the many 190 deserted our bodies discovered decomposing in a Colorado funeral dwelling watched in particular person for the primary time Tuesday because the homeowners of the enterprise appeared earlier than a decide.

Jon and Carie Hallford, homeowners of Return to Nature Funeral Dwelling, are accused of abusing corpses, stealing, laundering cash and forging paperwork. Standing in handcuffs and orange jail garments, they didn’t converse or enter pleas throughout a quick listening to.

The Colorado Springs-based funeral dwelling’s facility in Penrose, a Rocky Mountain city of about 4,000 individuals, is the place investigators in early October found dozens of stacked our bodies. Some had loss of life dates way back to 2019, based on a federal affidavit.

Relations have been falsely instructed their family members have been cremated, receiving substitute supplies that weren’t their ashes, court docket information allege.

In court docket for a scheduling listening to Tuesday, Heather DeWolf held up a photograph of her late son, Zach DeWolf, who died in 2020 at age 33. Return to Nature dealt with his stays.

“I don’t view them truthfully as human at this level. I don’t consider a human may do that,” DeWolf instructed a reporter.

Although her son’s stays had but to be recognized among the many many found on the facility, she feared the worst: The container she had rocked like a child, considering it was her son’s ashes, had another materials inside.

“I had not rocked with him since he was a toddler. And I may put my arms round him and simply maintain him,” DeWolf mentioned, her eyes watering. “And now, trying again, I don’t know if I used to be rocking my son or rocking concrete.”

A number of households who employed Return to Nature to cremate their family members have instructed The Related Press that the FBI confirmed to them privately that their family members have been among the many decaying our bodies.

How the our bodies allegedly have been mishandled remained unknown to the broader public Tuesday as protection attorneys objected to the need of prosecutors to unseal affidavits within the case. El Paso County Justice of the Peace Hilary Gurney mentioned she would defer to a future decide overseeing the case to resolve that.