Hundreds of families who entrusted their loved ones’ remains to the owners of Return to Nature funeral home have spent years hoping the courts would provide some version of closure after one of the most gruesome crimes in the history of the American funerary industry.

On Friday, El Paso County 4th Judicial Court Judge Eric Bentley handed down a sentence he said is unprecedented for a crime that did not involve murder or violent assault – but which victims of funeral home owners Jon and Carie Hallford said still fails to reflect the gravity of the harm and lasting trauma of their horrific misdeeds.

Bentley sentenced Return to Nature co-owner Jon Hallford to 40 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections for 191 counts of “abuse of a corpse,” a sentence set to run concurrent with a federal sentence of 20 years handed down for charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud to which both Jon Hallford and his ex-wife, Carie, pled guilty last year.

The plea agreements on both federal and state charges allowed the Hallfords, who are now divorced, to avoid trial. The agreements also inspired their hundreds of victims to travel thousands of miles, in some cases, to share their stories and speak up to advocate for harsher penalties at every juncture.

“Jon Hallford has taken away my ability to see my mother’s face,” said Tanya Wilson, addressing the court – and a packed courtroom – at Friday’s sentencing hearing in Colorado Springs before Bentley announced his decision. “When she died, we thought the worst had already happened. We were so wrong.”

Wilson’s late mother, Yong Anderson, was among the first bodies to be identified from recovered remains, in October 2023.

While the Hallfords’ crimes may not legally be classified as “violent,” Wilson said the effects have had a physical impact, and memories and grief forever corrupted.

Derrick Johnson, whose mother’s remains were identified in the funeral home, was among many who echoed the same sentiments and pain, speaking publicly on Friday.

“This isn’t ordinary grief,” Johnson said. “We were subjected to psychological violence

Neighbors complaining of a foul smell at the Hallford’s Penrose funeral home, in October 2023, ultimately led to the discovery of almost 200 bodies, in varies stages of decomposition. Jon and Carie later were arrested in Wagoner, OK on suspicion of abuse of a corpse, theft, money laundering and forgery, and held on a 2 million dollar bond, awaiting extradition to Colorado.

as early as September of 2019, and continuing through October

2023, the Hallfords failed to cremate or bury almost 200 bodies, in a scheme that likely netted them more than $130,000.

The Hallfords “attempted to conceal their fraudulent activity by allowing the 190 bodies to remain in various states of decay and decomposition within the Werner Road location in Penrose,” where the bodies remained until their discovery by authorities in October, 2023, according to the indictment.