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Speaker 1: Crime Alert hourly update, breaking crime news Now. I'm Drew Nelson.

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Speaker 1: A Colorado couple faces prison after running a funeral home

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Speaker 1: where nearly two hundred bodies were left to decay. The

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Speaker 1: shocking discovery brings light to a gruesome scheme involving fraud

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Speaker 1: and corpse abuse charges that John and Carrie Halford pleaded

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Speaker 1: guilty to as part of a plea deal. They were

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Speaker 1: the co owners of Return to Nature funeral Home. The

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Speaker 1: DA says they broke a bond with the community.

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Speaker 2: It is just something that strikes at the very core

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Speaker 2: of trust, and when you're going through life experiences of

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Speaker 2: loved ones and having somebody violate that trust is something

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Speaker 2: that's they'll likely never recover from.

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Speaker 1: The Halfords began storing bodies improperly in their business near

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Speaker 1: Colorado Springs as early as twenty nineteen. Instead of properly

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Speaker 1: cremating or burying bodies, the Halfords gave grieving families containers

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Speaker 1: filled with dry concrete, claiming it was their loved ones ashes.

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Speaker 1: The case began when neighbors reported a terrible smell from

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Speaker 1: the funeral home in Penrose. Investigators found one hundred and

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Speaker 1: ninety bodies and different stages of decomposition. Some bodies were

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Speaker 1: stored in awful conditions, wrapped in plastic bags or sheets,

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Speaker 1: or left uncovered. Altogether, the bodies were on the ground,

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Speaker 1: stacked on shelves, piled in corners. Prosecutors call the conditions horrific.

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Speaker 1: The Halfords were arrested in Oklahoma. Investigators say they had

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Speaker 1: tried to flee considering they faced over two hundred charges

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Speaker 1: in Colorado. Those charges include abuse of a corpse, forgery,

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Speaker 1: and money laundering. Earlier this month, the couple pleaded guilty,

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Speaker 1: and as part of their plea deals, John Halford agrees

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Speaker 1: to serve twenty years, while Carry Halford could face fifteen

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Speaker 1: to twenty depending on the judge's decision. Sentencing in that

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Speaker 1: case will be April twenty twenty five. In addition to

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Speaker 1: the state charges, the couple faced federal charges. They admitted

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Speaker 1: to conspiring to defraud the government and clients of almost

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Speaker 1: nine hundred thousand dollars. They used the funds meant for

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Speaker 1: funeral services and COVID nineteen relief for personal luxuries, cars, vacations,

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Speaker 1: even laser body sculpting. They were charged with conspiracy to

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Speaker 1: commit wire fraud and will be sentenced in federal court

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Speaker 1: in March. During their plea hearing, victim impacts statements, some

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Speaker 1: victims sharing pain, like Tanya Wilson, whose daughter was among

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Speaker 1: those improperly handled. She says, quote, it was very emotional

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Speaker 1: and difficult. Another mother, Angelica Stedman, said she doubted whether

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Speaker 1: she even had her daughter's ashes.

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Speaker 2: Quote.

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Speaker 1: If it had gone to trial, maybe we'd have some answers.

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Speaker 1: Prosecutors said the trust these families placed in them was violated.

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Speaker 1: More Crime and Justice news. After this, a potent new

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Speaker 1: opioid in California leads to an overdose death, the first

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Speaker 1: attributed to this drug in the United States. Now the

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Speaker 1: dealer faces serious charges. Federal prosecutors have charged twenty one

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Speaker 1: year old Benjamin Anthony Collins of Santa Clarita, California, with

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Speaker 1: distributing a synthetic opioid called protonitosine. The drug is reported

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Speaker 1: to be up to three times more powerful than fentanyl.

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Speaker 1: Collins faces a man undatory minimum of twenty years in

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Speaker 1: prison if convicted, with the possibility of life. He pleaded

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Speaker 1: not guilty at his arraignment and is being held without bond.

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Speaker 1: His trial is set for January fourteenth. The overdose happened

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Speaker 1: April nineteenth of this year. Collins allegedly sold protonitazine pills

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Speaker 1: to a twenty two year old man in Stevenson Ranch.

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Speaker 1: The man took the pills soon after buying them. He

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Speaker 1: died in the front seat of his parked car. His

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Speaker 1: mother found him in the driveway and called nine to

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Speaker 1: one one. Federal officials say this is the first case

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Speaker 1: of its kind in the United States involving the specific

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Speaker 1: drug protonitazine. It's a new synthetic opioid that first appeared

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Speaker 1: in illegal drug supplies in twenty twenty one. It's believed

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Speaker 1: to be far more powerful than fentanyl, which itself is

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Speaker 1: about fifty times stronger than heroin. The US Department of

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Speaker 1: Justice estimates that proto ninazine is one hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: times more powerful than heroin. Authorities claimed Collins had promised

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Speaker 1: to supply more of the pills in bulk. Prosecutors have

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Speaker 1: charged Collins with one count of distributing resulting in death.

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Speaker 1: The cases gained national atame tension because of the potential

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Speaker 1: widespread danger of protonineazine. In the meantime, US opioid overdose

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Speaker 1: deaths have seen a slight decline compared to recent years,

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Speaker 1: but numbers remain high. According to the Centers for Disease

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Speaker 1: Control and Prevention, there were over seventy five thousand opioid

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Speaker 1: overdose deaths in the year ending April twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: That is lower than the eighty six thousand recorded last year,

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Speaker 1: but it is still far higher than the pre pandemic levels.

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Speaker 1: A small Alabama town finds itself without funds or services

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Speaker 1: after a crackdown on its main source of revenue, electronic bingo.

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Speaker 1: Al dot Com says city accounts in Lipscomb are frozen,

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Speaker 1: employees are not being paid, and services have stopped. Mayor

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Speaker 1: Tonya Baldwin confirmed that the government shutdown is due to

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Speaker 1: a state raid on local bingo operations. She says, quote,

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Speaker 1: all city services are now suspended and payroll cannot be

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Speaker 1: issued for city employees until further notice. The raid came

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Speaker 1: after Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall took legal action against

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Speaker 1: electronic bingo halls, which had been the small town's largest

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Speaker 1: source of income. State agents rated Jay's Charity Bingo, which

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Speaker 1: had been shut down before in August, but was operating

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Speaker 1: again this time. Marshall's office also sued to freeze the

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Speaker 1: city's assets. Mayor Baldwin defends the BINGO operations, saying they

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Speaker 1: brought a central revenue to the struggling town, which was

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Speaker 1: nearly broke when the mayor took office in twenty twenty.

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Speaker 1: Quote you take that money and you use it to

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Speaker 1: bring in other business. We have investors who want to

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Speaker 1: come into the city. A judge entered an order freezing

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Speaker 1: all city funds until the hearing schedules for December second.

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Speaker 1: Marshall's office declared, quote, brazen disregard for the laws of

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Speaker 1: this state will not be tolerated. For the latest crime

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Speaker 1: and justice news, follow Crime Alert hourly update on your

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Speaker 1: favorite podcast app. But this Crime Alert, I'm Drew Nelson.