Carie Hallford, 47, and her husband Jon Hallford, 44, pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges and corpse abuse after leaving 190 decaying corpses in their funeral home.

The couple owned Return to Nature Funeral Home and had begun storing bodies in a decrepit building near Colorado Springs and had given families dry concrete in place of cremated remains, according to the charges. The bodies were discovered in 2023 after neighbors reported a stench coming from the building. Some of the bodies were stacked on top of each other and were wrapped in plastic. Several of the 190 bodies had been in the unrefrigerated room since the couple started their business in 2019.

The Hallfords spent their customers’ money and nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 pandemic relief funds to buy laser body sculpting, fancy cars, trips to Las Vegas and Florida, $31,000 in cryptocurrency and other luxury items according to the court documents.

In their last court hearing in Oct., the Hallfords both pled guilty to federal fraud charges in an agreement where they had to admit knowledge of defrauding customers and the federal government. The two have been charged with more than 200 charges of corpse abuse, theft, forgery and money laundering in state court.

Federal sentencing is scheduled for March 2025, and state sentencing will follow in April.

Jon Hallford faces up to 20 years in prison, while Carie Hallford could receive 15 to 20 years.