Families might have received fake ashes from funeral home

(20 Oct 2023)

FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4459480

RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Penrose, Colorado - 6 October 2023
1. Footage of the exterior of the Return to Nature Funeral Home
ANNOTATION: A Colorado funeral home where 189 decaying bodies were found appears to have fabricated cremation records and falsified death certificates.

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado Springs, Colorado - 19 October 2023
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Abby Swoveland, Return to Nature Customer:
“What I think Return to Nature did was take in bodies in Colorado Springs and their Penrose location. I have no idea where else they were operating... took these bodies in, lied to us families and took the bodies of our loved ones down to Penrose and stacked them in with other bodies.

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Penrose, Colorado - 6 October 2023
3. Footage of the exterior of the Return to Nature Funeral Home

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colorado Springs, Colorado - 19 October 2023
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Abby Swoveland, Return to Nature Customer:
“What I think happened to my mom’s ashes, I don’t have them. I am completely convinced that what I have is actually a bag of powdered cement. They’re not ashes. I’ve looked online and talked to other people and these ashes don’t look like ashes. They look like cement.”
5. Various of Swoveland showing the bag she received from the funeral home
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Abby Swoveland, Return to Nature Customer:
“I mean, it just looks like flour. But it’s very heavy and gray. The color of cement.”
7. Footage of Swoveland’s mother’s death certificate
ANNOTATION: At least four death certificates list a crematory that stopped doing business with Return to Nature more than five months before the deaths.

++PARTIALLY COVERED++
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Abby Swoveland, Return to Nature Customer:
“It’s unspeakable. It’s unspeakable. It truly is the worst thing that my family has gone through. Her death was hard enough because we are a very close and tight-knit family. And her death was hard enough. And we were starting just to walk with it, and you know, understand that our life still goes on with that."
9. Various of family photos
++COVERED++
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Abby Swoveland, Return to Nature Customer:
“She deserved a lot better than she got. She deserved to be treated with respect and respected, and honored, and none of that happened.”

STORYLINE:
A Colorado funeral home where 189 decaying bodies were discovered this month appears to have fabricated cremation records and may have given families fake ashes.

That’s according to information gathered by The Associated Press from customers and crematories.

The families that did business with Return to Nature Funeral Home fear their loved ones weren’t cremated at all and instead could be among the yet unidentified corpses authorities discovered after responding to a report of an “abhorrent smell.”

Return to Nature gave some customers death certificates stating their loved ones’ remains had been handled by one of two crematories.

But those businesses told the AP they were not performing cremations for Return to Nature on the dates included on the certificates.

Calls and texts sent to numbers listed for Return to Nature and owners Jon and Carie Hallford have gone unanswered since the discovery of the decaying bodies.

No arrests have been made.

Law enforcement officials have said Return to Nature’s owners were cooperating as investigators sought to determine any criminal wrongdoing.
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