Colorado Funeral Home owners were arrested on Wednesday after they were found with over 200 decaying bodies not stored or cared for the proper way. Jon and Carrie Hilford the owners of the business were charged arrested with four felony charges. These charges consisted of abuse of a corpse, theft, money laundering and forging. They were taken into custody and both held on a two-million-dollar bond.
“I want to warn you, the information contained in that affidavit is absolutely shocking,” said a reporter at the press conference talking about the situation. The policy received a complaint about an “abhorrent smell” coming from the house roughly 30 miles south of Colorado Springs. The sheriffs who investigated the scene described it as horrific.
The Colorado state law requires that bodies that aren’t embalmed must be put in the refrigerator at least 24 hours after death. The funeral home had not been complying with this law in any way, shape, or form. Some relatives of those who have recently passed also have reported that they believe their loved ones’ bodies were improperly stored and not taken care of properly. Some relatives also stated that they believe they received fake ashes after asking for their relatives to be cremated. This has been proven by multiple families. This has also exposed possible weak policies on Colorado’s part. Colorado does not require routine inspection for business like this, which most states do require. Colorado has minimum requirements dealing with funeral home inspections. This will probably change the Colorado requirements and they will likely up their regulations and requirements.
A press conference was released about the case when Micheal Martinez, the grandson of Linda Martinez who formally rested at this funeral home said “How do you just store 200 people”. And he’s not the only one who wonders this. Many questions have been circulating such as how they would do that and what the reason behind it was. Some have speculated that they could have potentially made a profit from the families, since they did not use their earnings for what they said they did. This is potential money laundering which gives them more felony charges.
110 of the bodies have been identified and 137 of the families have been reached out to or contacted. Many people related to these families are still trying to get justice for these individuals and get the families the help and justice that they need.
As the families get in touch with the authorities, some have been interviewed about the story. Crystina Page attended a news conference and talked about how she had been going through her life holding a red urn that she believed contained the ashes of her 20 year old son David. Her son was shot and killed by a police official in 2019. She continued to march around the US for police reform. Page has said that the arrest of the Hallford’s has given her hope “that there’s an end in sight” to this terrible situation she has got involved in and hopes to get justice.
