(KXRM) – A Colorado judge on Friday rejected a plea agreement for a funeral home owner who acknowledged abusing 191 corpses, many of which languished in a room-temperature building for years as the owner and his wife maintained a lavish lifestyle.

Jon Hallford, the co-owner of the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs, previously pled guilty to state charges of corpse abuse.

The plea agreement had called for a 20-year prison sentence that would run concurrently with his 20-year federal sentence, meaning he could have been freed many years earlier than if the sentences ran consecutively.

El Paso County District Court Judge Eric Bentley rejected the deal at a midday court session, taking a break before the verdict was read. Bentley said he was moved by the statements made by t

See Full Page