A Colorado couple who left almost 200 bodies to rot at room temperature in a storage facility have been hit with what lawyers say is the biggest judgment in state history. On Monday, a judge ordered Carie and Jon Hallford to pay more than $950 million to the families of people whose remains were found last year in what authorities said was a horrific scene, reports NPR. The judgment of $956,825,044 came in a class-action lawsuit against the Hallfords, owners of the Return to Nature funeral home. They had promised customers that their loved ones would have a "green burial."
According to court documents, a default judgment was entered after the couple failed to respond to the lawsuit, CNN reports. Andrew Swan, an attorney whose firm represented the victims pro bono, says the total could come to more than $1 billion with interest, though it's unlikely the families will be able to collect most of it. "We hope that the judgment sends an unmistakable message to the industry: Bad behavior has significant consequences," Swan says. The couple are accused of mishandling the bodies of 190 people. In some cases, relatives were sent fake ashes, investigators say.
The Hallfords still face numerous state and federal criminal charges, including 190 counts of abuse of a corpse. They are also accused of misusing more than $882,000 in pandemic relief loans, CNN reports. FBI investigators say they could have afforded to have the bodies cremated, but they spent money from the families on personal expenses. NPR reports that the outcry over the case led to new regulations this year on funeral homes in a state that previously had "remarkably lax laws" on the industry. (More funeral home stories.)
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