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Re: Nearly 200 abused corpses were found at a funeral home. Why did it take authorities years to act?
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Stupid In Colorado
Feb 11, 2024, 12:36:50 AM2/11/24
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On 08 Jun 2023, Frank Veto <now...@protonmail.com> posted some
news:u5to1d$1lauf$1...@dont-email.me:
> It's fucking Colorado! You have to ask why there is incompetence?
DENVER (AP) — A county coroner reported suspicions about bodies being
poorly treated by a Colorado funeral home more than three years before
nearly 200 decomposing bodies were discovered inside a decrepit building
in October, according to newly unsealed court documents that raise
questions about how the mistreatment of corpses was able to continue for
so long.
The concerns raised by the Fremont County coroner also included worries
about the improper refrigeration of bodies and were reported to a state
agency in 2020, according to the arrest affidavits for Return to Nature
Funeral Home owners Jon and Carie Hallford. But the coroner received no
response from the state agency, which has long struggled to effectively
oversee the funeral home industry, according to the documents.
Colorado has some of the weakest rules for funeral homes in the nation
with no routine inspections or qualification requirements for funeral home
operators. The Hallfords allegedly stored bodies as far back as 2019, and
the count grew over the next four years, as prosecutors claim they used
the money they were taking from grieving families for lavish expenses.
“The fact that he made a complaint and nothing was done about it just
completely blows my mind,” said Tanya Wilson, who hired the funeral home
to cremate her mother before learning that her mother’s remains weren’t in
the ashes she had spread in Hawaii but languishing inside a building back
in Colorado.
“Families could’ve been saved from this if they had done something about
this,” she said.
Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Agencies on Friday confirmed that it
did get an email from Fremont County coroner Randy Keller in May 2020
saying that he had gotten calls regarding refrigeration issues at a
funeral home in his county but he did not say which one. Keller said he
did not know if the concerns were justified and offered to do an
inspection if the state wasn’t able to, said department spokesperson Katie
O’Donnell in a statement.
O’Donnell said the agency didn’t have the power to inspect funeral homes
at the time, with lawmakers giving the agency inspection authority two
years later. It’s unclear if the agency followed up after Keller’s initial
email, or if Keller did an inspection himself.
O’Donnell declined to elaborate on Keller’s 2020 email and the agency’s
response. Keller did not respond to a phone call requesting comment.
The funeral home, which was based in Colorado Springs and used a building
in nearby Penrose where the bodies were found as a mortuary, was first
licensed in 2017. State regulators did not conduct any inspection of the
funeral home while it was operating, according to the affidavits. Colorado
lawmakers have dragged their feet in passing funeral home regulations on
par with most other states — even after a separate Colorado funeral home’s
operators were accused of selling bodies years before the discovery at
Return to Nature.
The bodies were finally discovered last year after neighbors complained of
the smell coming from the building. Authorities who responded found a
stain coming out the front door that they say was the result of the
decomposition of bodies, according to the affidavits. That echoed
descriptions of the floors inside being covered with the fluid from
decomposition provided during court hearings for the Hallfords.
The affidavits describe how the bodies were strewn throughout the rooms
and how Jon Hallford was seen on surveillance video treating a body more
like a sandbag than a former human being. They say that buckets had been
placed under some bodies to collect the fluid. About 40 bodies had been
stacked on top of each other and some were stored in storage totes,
according to the affidavits, which note the “unimaginable conditions”
authorities worked in to remove the bodies while wearing protective
equipment.
“I picture my mom in every single one of those situations,” said Wilson.
“I imagine my mom folded up and put in a storage tote. I imagine my mom
just being left on the floor within inches of decomposition fluids.”
“And it haunts me,” she said.
Investigators believe Jon Hallford moved some bodies from the main funeral
home in Colorado Springs to the Penrose building in September after a
complaint about odor at the main site. According to the affidavit,
surveillance footage showed him flipping a body off a gurney and onto the
floor at the Penrose building so he could use it to bring more bodies
inside from a van on Sept. 9, 2023, a day after the complaint.
The affidavits also provided more details about previous allegations that
the Hallfords used money families and insurance companies paid to cover
cremations and burials to pay for lavish personal expenses, including
trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, $31,000 in cryptocurrency,
laser body sculpting and shopping at luxury retailers like Gucci and
Tiffany.
>From 2020 to 2023, Jon Hallford also bought over 600 pounds of concrete
mix at Home Depot and investigators suspect the couple put it in urns
instead of ashes, the affidavit says. Prosecutors have said some relatives
of the deceased received fake ashes rather than the cremated remains of
their loved ones.
The arrest affidavits have been sealed since November when the couple was
arrested in Oklahoma after they allegedly fled, but were made public
following an evidentiary hearing held Thursday for Jon Hallford. Carie
Hallford’s hearing was held last month.
Jon Hallford is represented by Adam Steigerwald, an attorney from the
public defender’s office, which does not comment on its cases. Carie
Hallford’s lawyer, Michael Stuzynski, declined to comment.
They are each charged with 190 counts of abuse of a corpse, five counts of
theft, four counts of money laundering and over 50 counts of forgery. They
have not been asked to enter a plea yet.
https://apnews.com/article/colorado-funeral-home-bodies-abandoned-
5677a920c994ff7c641eb70c7c5962d5
news:u5to1d$1lauf$1...@dont-email.me:
> It's fucking Colorado! You have to ask why there is incompetence?
DENVER (AP) — A county coroner reported suspicions about bodies being
poorly treated by a Colorado funeral home more than three years before
nearly 200 decomposing bodies were discovered inside a decrepit building
in October, according to newly unsealed court documents that raise
questions about how the mistreatment of corpses was able to continue for
so long.
The concerns raised by the Fremont County coroner also included worries
about the improper refrigeration of bodies and were reported to a state
agency in 2020, according to the arrest affidavits for Return to Nature
Funeral Home owners Jon and Carie Hallford. But the coroner received no
response from the state agency, which has long struggled to effectively
oversee the funeral home industry, according to the documents.
Colorado has some of the weakest rules for funeral homes in the nation
with no routine inspections or qualification requirements for funeral home
operators. The Hallfords allegedly stored bodies as far back as 2019, and
the count grew over the next four years, as prosecutors claim they used
the money they were taking from grieving families for lavish expenses.
“The fact that he made a complaint and nothing was done about it just
completely blows my mind,” said Tanya Wilson, who hired the funeral home
to cremate her mother before learning that her mother’s remains weren’t in
the ashes she had spread in Hawaii but languishing inside a building back
in Colorado.
“Families could’ve been saved from this if they had done something about
this,” she said.
Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Agencies on Friday confirmed that it
did get an email from Fremont County coroner Randy Keller in May 2020
saying that he had gotten calls regarding refrigeration issues at a
funeral home in his county but he did not say which one. Keller said he
did not know if the concerns were justified and offered to do an
inspection if the state wasn’t able to, said department spokesperson Katie
O’Donnell in a statement.
O’Donnell said the agency didn’t have the power to inspect funeral homes
at the time, with lawmakers giving the agency inspection authority two
years later. It’s unclear if the agency followed up after Keller’s initial
email, or if Keller did an inspection himself.
O’Donnell declined to elaborate on Keller’s 2020 email and the agency’s
response. Keller did not respond to a phone call requesting comment.
The funeral home, which was based in Colorado Springs and used a building
in nearby Penrose where the bodies were found as a mortuary, was first
licensed in 2017. State regulators did not conduct any inspection of the
funeral home while it was operating, according to the affidavits. Colorado
lawmakers have dragged their feet in passing funeral home regulations on
par with most other states — even after a separate Colorado funeral home’s
operators were accused of selling bodies years before the discovery at
Return to Nature.
The bodies were finally discovered last year after neighbors complained of
the smell coming from the building. Authorities who responded found a
stain coming out the front door that they say was the result of the
decomposition of bodies, according to the affidavits. That echoed
descriptions of the floors inside being covered with the fluid from
decomposition provided during court hearings for the Hallfords.
The affidavits describe how the bodies were strewn throughout the rooms
and how Jon Hallford was seen on surveillance video treating a body more
like a sandbag than a former human being. They say that buckets had been
placed under some bodies to collect the fluid. About 40 bodies had been
stacked on top of each other and some were stored in storage totes,
according to the affidavits, which note the “unimaginable conditions”
authorities worked in to remove the bodies while wearing protective
equipment.
“I picture my mom in every single one of those situations,” said Wilson.
“I imagine my mom folded up and put in a storage tote. I imagine my mom
just being left on the floor within inches of decomposition fluids.”
“And it haunts me,” she said.
Investigators believe Jon Hallford moved some bodies from the main funeral
home in Colorado Springs to the Penrose building in September after a
complaint about odor at the main site. According to the affidavit,
surveillance footage showed him flipping a body off a gurney and onto the
floor at the Penrose building so he could use it to bring more bodies
inside from a van on Sept. 9, 2023, a day after the complaint.
The affidavits also provided more details about previous allegations that
the Hallfords used money families and insurance companies paid to cover
cremations and burials to pay for lavish personal expenses, including
trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, $31,000 in cryptocurrency,
laser body sculpting and shopping at luxury retailers like Gucci and
Tiffany.
>From 2020 to 2023, Jon Hallford also bought over 600 pounds of concrete
mix at Home Depot and investigators suspect the couple put it in urns
instead of ashes, the affidavit says. Prosecutors have said some relatives
of the deceased received fake ashes rather than the cremated remains of
their loved ones.
The arrest affidavits have been sealed since November when the couple was
arrested in Oklahoma after they allegedly fled, but were made public
following an evidentiary hearing held Thursday for Jon Hallford. Carie
Hallford’s hearing was held last month.
Jon Hallford is represented by Adam Steigerwald, an attorney from the
public defender’s office, which does not comment on its cases. Carie
Hallford’s lawyer, Michael Stuzynski, declined to comment.
They are each charged with 190 counts of abuse of a corpse, five counts of
theft, four counts of money laundering and over 50 counts of forgery. They
have not been asked to enter a plea yet.
https://apnews.com/article/colorado-funeral-home-bodies-abandoned-
5677a920c994ff7c641eb70c7c5962d5
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