Denver – Malik A Colorado Funeral Home His spouse was arrested after the stays of at the least 189 individuals have been just lately discovered at his facility.
John and Carrie Halford have been arrested in Wagoner, Oklahoma, on suspicion of three felonies: abuse of a corpse, cash laundering, and forgery, authorities mentioned in an e-mail to affected households. John Halford is being held within the Muscogee County Jail, Oklahoma, though there are not any data exhibiting his spouse may additionally be there, in keeping with a person who answered a name to the jail however declined to present his identify.
The Hallfords couldn’t instantly be reached for remark Wednesday. Neither of them has a private cellphone quantity listed and the funeral residence quantity now not works.
John Halford owns Return to Nature Funeral Dwelling in Penrose, a small city about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Denver. The stays have been discovered on October 4 by authorities in response to a report of… “bad smell” Contained in the dilapidated firm constructing. Officers initially appreciated this About 115 There have been our bodies inside, however the quantity later rose to 189 after they completed eradicating all of the stays in mid-October.
A day after the odor was reported, the director of the funeral residence and crematorium registry spoke by cellphone with Halford. He tried to cover improper storage of our bodies at Penrose, admitted there was a “drawback” on the website and claimed to have practiced embalming there, in keeping with an Oct. 5 order from state officers.
The corporate, which began in 2017 and presents “inexperienced” cremations and burials with out embalming fluids, has continued to do enterprise at the same time as its monetary and authorized issues have mounted lately. The house owners have missed paying taxes in latest months, been evicted from one in all their properties and are being sued for unpaid payments by a crematorium that stopped doing enterprise with them a few yr in the past, in keeping with public data and interviews with individuals who labored with them.
Colorado has a number of the weakest oversight of funeral houses within the nation with no routine inspections or qualification necessities for funeral residence operators.
There isn’t a indication that state regulators visited the location or contacted Halford till greater than 10 months after Penrose Funeral Dwelling’s registration expired in November 2022. State lawmakers gave regulators the ability to examine funeral houses with out the house owners’ consent final yr, however no Save more money. Offered for elevated inspections.
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