A former funeral service operator is facing multiple charges after a woman’s corpse and the cremated remains of at least 30 people were found at a home in Denver, Colorado, last week, police say.
The owners of the house discovered several boxes containing cremated human remains while removing their tenant’s belongings from the property on February 6, Denver police said in a news conference Friday.
The Denver Sheriff Department had served an eviction order at the address and a deputy was standing by when the homeowners found the remains in the crawl space, Police Commander Matt Clark told reporters.
Investigators from the Denver Police Department and the medical examiner’s office responded to the home to examine and recover the remains, Clark said.
The tenant also had an inoperable hearse in the backyard of the home. When the vehicle was towed to the street, investigators discovered additional urns as well as the body of a woman covered with a blanket in the back of the vehicle, according to Clark.
The medical examiner’s team confirmed that the body was that of a 63-year-old woman who died in August 2022, the police commander said.
“Through the investigation, detectives have determined the woman’s remains have likely been stored and concealed in the hearse since shortly after her passing,” Clark said.
When police contacted the woman’s family, they told them they had previously received remains from the funeral home that they thought belonged to their loved one, Clark said.
Authorities identified the tenant of the home as Miles Harford, 33, who operated Apollo Funeral and Cremation Services in Littleton, Colorado, from 2012 till 2022.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Harford, who faces charges of abuse of a corpse, forgery of a public document and theft, according to Clark.
Harford is cooperating with the investigation and “does acknowledge that he could not find a crematory to process the woman’s body,” according to Clark.
“It appears Mr. Harford had accumulated significant debt with several metro area crematories,” and “he was unable to complete the cremation that had been pre-arranged by the family of the woman,” Clark said.
The suspect then placed the woman’s body in the hearse and gave her family someone else’s remains, the police commander said.
CNN has reached out to Harford for comment.
Investigators also searched a U-Haul vehicle in front of the house, finding six additional urns containing cremated remains, police said.
“All the recovered remains appear to be associated with individuals who passed away between 2012 and 2021,” Clark said.
“Harford may have occasionally provided family members with another person’s cremated remains in lieu of their family members’ remains so services could be held,” Clark said. “Through conversations with the families it has come to light that many experienced delays in obtaining cremated remains from Apollo and Harford – some expected pieces of jewelry with their loved ones’ remains but never received them.”
Clark said authorities were in contact with Harford – who is believed to be in the Denver metro area – and are working to arrest him.
If convicted, Harford could face up to three years in prison, Denver District Attorney Beth McCann said at Friday’s news conference, adding that further charges were possible as the police investigation continues.
“It is an unusual situation, and we intend to fully prosecute once Mr. Harford is arrested,” McCann said.
Police Department Division Chief of Investigations Rick Kyle said police were working to support the families impacted by the discovery of the remains.
“Losing a loved one is hard enough, but when the loved one’s remains are mishandled, it just adds to the grief and causes further unnecessary pain,” he said.
Clark said police had yet to connect with some of the families affected.
The commander said obtaining viable DNA samples from cremated remains is difficult, and police will not be using DNA testing to identify them. He noted that some of the remains had identification tags attached.
A hotline has been established for concerned families, he said.
Clark said the case does not appear to be linked to another recent Colorado case in Fremont County, where the owners of a funeral home were arrested in November last year following the discovery of 190 sets of human remains that authorities said were “improperly stored” at their business.