The families of the victims have expressed their desire for each of the convicted individuals to receive a sentence of 191 years, symbolizing one year for every victim involved.

Many family members have also voiced their opinion that the Hallfords should not be allowed to serve their state and federal sentences concurrently.

Jon Hallford is slated to receive his sentence on February 6, while Carie Hallford’s sentencing is scheduled for April 24.

A statement released by a group representing the victims’ families emphasized their preference for the case to go to trial.

“This case does not revolve around convenience or efficiency,” stated Crystina Page, whose son’s remains were among those discovered.

“It is about human beings who were treated as disposable.

“Accepting a plea agreement sends the message that this level of abuse is negotiable. We reject that message.”

Kelly Schloesser said her mother, Mary Lou Ehrlich, looked peaceful after she died in 2022, but her final memories have been haunted after learning a year later that Ehrlich’s body had been left to decompose.

“I apologise to my mother every day for trusting these people,” she told state District Judge Eric Bentley.

Lawyers for both Hallford urged Bentley to accept the plea agreements, which will also ban them from working in the funeral home industry.

Carie Hallford’s lawyer, Beau Worthington, noted that she would be eligible to be sentenced to probation if she was convicted after a trial.

In a rare decision, Bentley earlier this year rejected previous plea agreements that called for up to 20 years in prison, with family members of the deceased saying the proposed punishments were too lenient.

“These are really meaningful changes from where I sit,” he said.

Bentley said he could not legally stack the state sentences on top of the federal ones because that would amount to punishing the Hallfords twice for the same conduct.

The Hallfords are accused of dumping bodies and giving families fake ashes between 2019 and 2023.

Investigators have described finding the bodies in 2023 stored atop each other in a bug-infested building in Penrose, a small town about a two-hour drive south of Denver.

The scene was horrific, officials said, with bodies stacked atop each other in various states of decay — some having been there for four years.

While Jon Hallford was accused of dumping the bodies, authorities said Carie Hallford was the face of the funeral home.

During a hearing in November, Bentley said he considered the need for deterrence in rejecting the plea agreement.

Colorado, for many years, had some of the weakest funeral home industry regulations in the nation, leading to numerous abuse cases involving fake ashes, fraud, and even the illegal selling of body parts.

In August, authorities announced that during their first inspection of a funeral home owned by the county coroner in Pueblo, Colorado, they found 24 decomposing corpses behind a hidden door.

That investigation is pending as authorities have reported slow progress in identifying corpses that, in some cases, have languished for more than a decade.

The Return to Nature case has helped trigger reforms, including routine inspections.

The Hallfords also have admitted in federal court to defrauding the US Small Business Administration of nearly $US900,000 ($1.34 million) in pandemic-era aid and taking payments from customers for cremations the funeral home never performed.