Colorado Funeral Home Scandal: 30-Year Sentence

Carrie Haulford, the former owner of a Colorado funeral home called Return to Nature, just

got hit with a 30-year prison sentence for helping her.

X has been hired nearly 200 decomposing bodies.

She pleaded guilty in a deal that captured time between 25 and 35 years in state court,

on top of an 18-year federal fraud.

Sentence she got last month?

Her X, John Haulford, pulled 20 years in federal court, and 40 years on state court's abuse

charges back in February.

They ran the business out of spots in Colorado Springs and Penrose, charging grieving families

over $1,200 each for.

Cremations that never happened.

Instead, folks got fake ashes while the real remains rotted in toxic fluids.

Victims laid it all out in court, like Tanya Wilson, whose mom's body was supposed to

join her Korean ancestors, but ended up discarded.

Wilson said Haulford destroyed her family's dignity after they carefully prepared the body.

Area apologized through tears, blaming a marriageful of abuse and lies, but prosecutors

called her the one who reeled in the customers and took their cash.

This mess finally forced Colorado to get serious about funeral homes, the only state without

rules before now.

Lawmakers wrote out routine inspections and licensing after finding the bodies, plus

other scandals like 24 more corpses in Pueblo and Body.

Parts sold in Montrose.

Those are in the works for both Haulfords, with their sentences running at the same time,

though some families called the pleas too soft.

Colorado's waking up to fix a broken system, long overdue for checks.

That's your California News Today update, AI-powered and always on.