DENVER — A couple who owned a funeral home in Colorado, where authorities last year found 190 decomposing bodies, have been indicted on federal charges that they improperly spent nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds on vacations, cosmetic surgery, jewelry and other personal expenses, according to unsealed court documents Monday
The indictment confirms allegations by state prosecutors that John and Carrie Holford gave the families dry concrete instead of cremated ashes and alleges the couple buried the wrong body twice.
The couple also collected more than $130,000 from families for cremations and burial services they never provided, the indictment said.
The 15 indictments handed down by a federal grand jury are in addition to more than 200 criminal cases already pending against Holford in Colorado state court for abuse of corpses, money laundering, theft and forgery.
The federal crimes carry potential penalties of 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, the indictment said.
On Monday, the owners of Back to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs entered a federal courtroom in handcuffs as they made their first appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott Warholak.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Neff argued the couple was a flight risk after they allegedly fled to Oklahoma last October when the decomposing bodies were first discovered and before their arrest on state charges on Nov. 8.
“They just evaporated from the community,” Neff said.
The judge did not immediately decide whether the couple should be released pending trial. He scheduled a hearing on the charges for Thursday.
Carrie Holford’s attorney, Chaz Meliherczyk, said he would oppose the detention at the next hearing. Jon Hallford’s public defender, Kilie Latendresse, told the judge that he complied with the terms of his bond in the state case and that detention was unnecessary.
The new accusations and charges caused more grief for the families who sent their loved ones to the funeral home.
Each new revelation about the case is a shock to Tanya Wilson, who hired Return to Nature to cremate her mother’s remains. Wilson scattered the ashes with his family in Hawaii. After the grim discovery, Wilson was told that those ashes were not in fact her mother, whose body has since been identified among the 190 decomposing bodies.
Hundreds of family members, like Wilson, thought they had laid their loved ones to rest or held their ashes, only for that healing to be ripped away.
“Honestly, I feel like I have whiplash and I can’t hold an emotion long enough to process it,” Wilson said by phone.
Before the new indictment was unsealed, public records showed the Halfords were plagued by debt – facing evictions and lawsuits over unpaid cremations, despite spending lavishly on themselves.
The indictment alleges the couple used $882,300 in pandemic relief funds to purchase items that also included a vehicle, dinners, tuition for their child and cryptocurrency. The fraud involved three loans obtained between March 2020 and October 2021, authorities said.
Previously released court documents from the state embezzlement case reveal more details about what they spent money on.
They bought a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti that together cost more than $120,000 — enough to cover twice the cost of cremating all the bodies found at their business last October, according to previous court testimony by FBI agent Andrew Cohen.
“It’s just completely disgusting, for lack of a better term, just reading about all the money they had,” Wilson said. “Just the cost of the two vehicles that he bought … was enough to just handle these families.”
Holford also paid for trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, as well as $31,000 in cryptocurrency, laser body sculpting and shopping at luxury retailers such as Gucci and Tiffany & Co., according to court documents.
The couple has yet to plead guilty to charges of abuse of corpses by the state.
The Holfords left behind a trail of unpaid bills, disgruntled landlords and unsettled business disputes.
The couple once told a former landlord that they would settle their rent when they were paid for the work they did for the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the COVID-19 pandemic. The business’s website featured FEMA and Department of Defense logos.
FEMA said they did not have any contracts with the funeral home. A search of a Defense Department database also turned up no contracts with Return to Nature.
The company has not paid more than $5,000 in property taxes for 2022 at one of its locations, public records show. Then last year, the business was fined $21,000 for failing to pay for “several hundred cremations,” according to public records and attorney Lisa Epps of Wilbert Funeral Services Crematory.
Holford’s alleged lies, money laundering, forgery and manipulation over the past four years have devastated hundreds of grieving family members.
The 190 bodies were found last year in an insect-infested warehouse in the small town of Penrose, about two hours south of Denver. Some of the remains have disappeared since 2019.
An Associated Press investigation found that the Holfords may have sent fake ashes and fabricated cremation records to families who did business with them. They appear to have written on the death certificates given to the families along with the ashes that the cremations were performed by Wilbert Funeral Services, which denied performing them for the funeral home at the time.
When the decomposing bodies were identified, the families learned that the ashes they received could not be the remains of their loved ones. Court documents say at least some was dry concrete.
As early as 2020, concerns were raised about the improper storage of bodies at the business. But there was no follow-up from regulators, allowing the collection of bodies to grow to nearly 200 over the next three years.
Colorado has some of the weakest regulations for funeral homes in the country. Funeral home operators in the state don’t have to graduate from high school, let alone study mortuary science or pass an exam.
The Hallfords case and others in recent years have prompted Colorado lawmakers to introduce legislation to strengthen oversight with rules that match or exceed those in other states. These bills are currently moving through the state legislature.
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
