Victims of Penrose funeral home want a trial, but Hallfords could avoid it

EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. ( KXRM ) — Victims of the Return to Nature Funeral Home will have to wait until the fall to find out what happened to their loved ones if the case goes to trial.

Should Jon and Carie Hallford accept a plea deal that was brought to the table in July, victims may never get those answers, and that’s a contingency that doesn’t sit well with many.

On Thursday morning, Carie appeared in El Paso County Court for an arraignment hearing. Jon was not in the courtroom, as he is in federal custody, but that didn’t stop a new judge on the case from issuing a bench warrant.

A plea deal brought forth earlier in July by the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office was on the table on Thursday, where it remains until Sept. 20 — that’s the date set for the final arraignment hearing, in which the Hallfords will decide either to take the plea deal or proceed to trial.

“These court hearings, I’m beginning to think this whole thing is a joke, it’s just getting dragged out more and more,” lamented Angelika Stedman, who said her daughter has yet to be identified.

A trial is exactly what victims like Stedman want so they can finally learn more about the investigation and possibly what happened to their loved ones.

“If they [the Hallfords] plead guilty, this whole thing is just going to go away, as far as the justice system is concerned, and we’re never going to get any answers,” argued Stedman. “We want to know what the investigation brought out, we want to know what the evidence is, we want to be able to get information on what happened to our loved ones. And we won’t get that if it doesn’t go to trial.”

Stedman said she trusted the Return to Nature Funeral Home with her daughter, and now she worries she may never know what happened to her child.

“My daughter still has not been identified. The justice system does not see me or my daughter as a victim because she has not been identified as a body down there. But there is no answer to what happened to her or where she is at,” Stedman said.

Crystina Page also trusted Return to Nature with her son. She thought his remains were in a vial she wore around her neck.

“My son was identified in the building. He was there for about four years in an inoperable refrigeration system,” said Page.

Instead, the ashes she carries with her are unknown.

“We’ll never know, because the DNA is destroyed in the cremation process,” Page said.

The Hallfords are currently staring down 15 federal charges for COVID relief fraud, and more than 200 criminal counts in state court for corpse abuse, money laundering, theft and forgery. The plea deal offered earlier in July by the DA could put the Hallfords behind bars for up to 20 years.

As victims watch the days and weeks tick by in the wait for justice, they’ve formed a new family they never once thought they would need.

“Nobody likes to be in this group that we are in,” Stedman said, as she held hands with Page. “But we are glad we all have each other.”

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