DENVER (AP) — A Colorado judge on Monday rejected the plea deal of a funeral home owner accused of stashing nearly in a bug-infested building after family members of the deceased argued that the deal’s 15- to 20-year sentence was too lenient.
“The sentence negotiated by the parties does not adequately account for the harms that these crimes have caused,” said State District Judge Eric Bentley, describing his rare decision to forego an agreement made by the prosecution and defense.
Carie Hallford and her husband, , owned Return to Nature Funeral Home and are accused of dumping the bodies in a building in a rural town between 2019 and 2023, giving families fake ashes and out of .
Jon and Carie Hallford both pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse last year, and Bentley has now rejected both of their plea deals after family members asked for a more severe punishment.
After the judge’s decision, Carie Hallford withdrew her guilty plea and a trial was set for next year.
Previously, Jon Hallford also withdrew his guilty plea and is scheduled for trial.
After the discovery of the bodies, families learned that their relatives’ remains weren’t in the urn or the ashes they ceremonially spread, but instead were languishing with nearly 190 other bodies. Some said they had nightmares of what their loved one must have looked like in that building; others wondered about their relatives’ souls.
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