‘Deeply disturbing’ photos from inside Return to Nature funeral home shown during prelim hearing

EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- For the first time, families who used Return to Nature to cremate their loved ones saw photos from inside the Penrose funeral home during the co-owner Carie Hallford's court hearing Thursday.

Carie Hallford, and her husband Jon, are accused of storing nearly 200 bodies, including fetuses, infants and adults according to the FBI, inside a Penrose funeral home. The FBI said the bodies were stored in various ways, including wrapped in plastic, bodybags, stored in cardboard boxes and plastic totes.

To begin the hearing, the prosecution showed gruesome photos from inside the funeral home, which the judge described as "deeply disturbing."      

The photos showed bodies stacked on top of each other in multiple rooms, including more than 40 bodies in a homemade refrigeration unit. They also showed the floor of the building covered in a dark brown liquid, which an FBI agent who took the witness stand said was fluid from human decomposition. He said authorities had to put cardboard on the floors to avoid slipping there was so much fluid. During the investigation, the FBI brought in a septic company to try and vacuum up the fluids.

"All I've been left with for months is my imagination," Abby Swoveland said of the inside of the Penrose building. "To actually see what was going on in there, it was beyond horrific. Just to think that our family members were in there and everything that we saw that that they truly treated them like trash."

Authorities also found insects all over the floors and walls of the building, as well as windows and doors covered with curtains or foil, which the FBI agent said was to keep the public from knowing what has happening inside.

"Bodies blocking doorways and windows blacked out so that nobody could look," Swoveland said. "It is just unconscionable that people, human beings could do this."

Swoveland's mother was one of the nearly 200 bodies identified inside the funeral home. The FBI said there are still 30 to 40 bodies that haven't been identified.

The prosecution said the oldest body found inside the Penrose funeral home dates back to September 15, 2019, while the most recent body identified was from August 22, 2023. The FBI agent said about 70% of the bodies were from El Paso County. The 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office then provided the specific number of bodies found inside the funeral home according to the year they died.

• 2019 - 23 bodies
• 2020 - 61 bodies
• 2022 - 17 bodies
• 2023 - 40 bodies

The FBI agent said no bodies that died in 2021 were found inside the funeral home because Return to Nature had former employees that properly buried them, according to interviews between those former employees and the FBI.

The prosecution also showed a screenshot of Jon Hallford from a surveillance camera inside the Penrose funeral home on September 9, 2023. The FBI agent said the surveillance video from that night shows Jon going into the funeral home, grabbing a cart with a body on it, dumping the body on the floor and leaving the building with the empty cart. However, Carie never entered the building.

The prosecution then presented bank records from their business account, which they said showed "extravagant" purchases, including two cars. The Hallfords also bought 660 pounds of quikrete mix from Home Depot. The FBI agent said dozens of open bags were found inside and outside the Penrose facility. Many families believe they received quikcrete instead of ashes.

"It thoroughly disgusts me that this is what they had and it's on the backs of the people living in that building and the families of the people that were left and discarded in that building," Swoveland said. "They're driving around in $80,000 vehicles. It's unconscionable."

The Hallfords are facing 61 counts of forgery. Christopher Adams, an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigations, was also called to the witness stand by the prosecution. He said investigators found death certificates forged with a disposition, which was false because bodies were never buried or cremated. He said only 61 forged death certificates met Colorado's statute of limitations for forgery.

The Hallfords are also facing 5 counts of theft after the CBI found contracts between the Hallfords and customers for cremation services which were never performed.

The prosecution then called Kevin Clark to the witness stand, the director of Crime Strategies & Intelligence for the 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office. He analyzed records from the Hallfords phones. Text messages shown in court described a tense relationship between Jon and Carie.

"My one and only focus is keeping us out of jail," Jon texted Carie on May 5, 2020. What is yours?"

In texts to Carie, Jon describes working with bodies.

"I’d like to all the bodies out before Claire comes and visits here," Jon texted Carie on August 12, 2023.

"While I was making the transfer I got people juice on me," he texted later that day.

Clark also described Carie's search history which included ways to avoid detection.

"Very callous, disengaged," Swoveland said of the Hallford's phone records. "They did not look at our loved ones like people and they were more concerned about getting themselves to safety and not being arrested and how they could make their escape."

Carie's husband and co-defendant, Jon Hallford, had his bond lowered to $100,000 last week, but, at the time of publication, he has not posted that money and currently remains in the El Paso County Jail. The rest of the preliminary hearing will continue Jan. 17, where the judge will also address Carie's bond, which remains at $2 million, cash only.

On Friday, the judge will decide whether to unseal the arrest affidavit for the Hallfords, which supposedly includes some of the gruesome photos shown today.