DENVER — Carie Hallford, the former Return to Nature Funeral Home co-owner who helped her ex-husband hide nearly 200 decomposing bodies in a building in Penrose, was sentenced Monday to 18 years on a federal fraud charge, nearly the maximum allowed under the law.

Carie Hallford, 48, faced up to 20 years in prison for taking over $130,000 from families for funeral services, including cremations, and often giving them urns full of concrete mix instead. In two cases, investigators found the wrong body was buried. In August, she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and admitted that she and her ex-husband Jon Hallford cheated customers and also defrauded the federal government out of nearly $900,000 in pandemic small business aid.

Carie Hallford had asked the court for leniency, saying she was a “scared and desperate mother” who was manipulated to keep the family business operating. She decided to get a divorce after she was put back in jail in her state case in November 2024, which put her out of reach of her husband’s constant calls and texts and allowed the “fog in her mind from the years of abuse” to lift, according to a court filing by her lawyer, Robert Charles Melihercik.