Derrick Johnson laid his mother’s ashes to rest in 2023, burying them beneath a tree at his Maui home. It was exactly what she had wanted, a spot that would allow her to overlook her grandchildren.
About a year later, Johnson got an unexpected call from the FBI.
After confirming who he was, the caller told him there had been an incident and said an agent would be coming to meet up with more information.
Before hanging up, the caller asked whether he had used a funeral home called Return to Nature.
Johnson immediately searched the name on his phone.
What came up were news articles and images showing hundreds of decomposing bodies, piled on top of one another.
The shock hit him all at once; he struggled to breathe, felt nauseated, and his chest was in pain.
At the time, Johnson was teaching an eighth-grade gym class. He ended up rushing out of the building as another teacher heard him crying out and ran after him.
The following week, two FBI agents showed up at Johnson’s home.
They confirmed his mother was among 189 people whose bodies had been stored inside a building by the funeral home’s owners, Carie and Jon Hallford, between 2019 and 2023.
It ended up being one of the biggest funeral home body scandals in U.S. history.
Because of it all, lawmakers stepped in and toughened up the state’s funeral home regulations.
Investigators also found that the Hallfords had handed grieving families fake ashes.
On top of that, they were accused of cheating the federal government out of nearly $900,000 in small business relief during the pandemic.
Officials said the couple continued to live extravagantly even as bills piled up; they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on jewellery and luxury cars.
The pair were taken into custody in Oklahoma in November 2023 and accused of mistreating nearly 200 bodies.
Authorities had to break the news to hundreds of families that the ashes they had kept close or scattered in memorial ceremonies did not belong to their loved ones.
Instead, their bodies were left to rot inside a Colorado building that wasn’t even refrigerated.
On Friday, Jon Hallford was sentenced to 40 years in prison, while Carie Hallford is scheduled to be sentenced in April.
Johnson, now 45, has been dealing with panic attacks since the FBI call and had vowed to speak out during Hallford’s sentencing.
