DENVER (AP) — A Colorado funeral home owner accused of stashing nearly 200 decomposing bodies in a room-temperature building admitted in federal court Monday that she cheated customers and defrauded the federal government out of nearly $900,000.
Carie Hallford, who ran Return to Nature Funeral Home with her husband Jon Hallford, pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Carie Hallford faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, though federal prosecutors agreed to ask for 15 years at a December sentencing hearing.
Hallford already pleaded guilty once in federal court, but a judge last year rejected the agreement with prosecutors and still has to approve this one.
Crystina Page’s son David died in 2019, and his body was left in an inoperable refrigerator for four years. Standing outside the federal courthouse Monday, Page said she’s disappointed about the possibility that neither Hallford goes on trial, something she hoped would have brought answers about what happened to her son and others entrusted to their care…