Funeral home owner Miles Harford wanted for abuse of corpse arrested in Colorado, released on PR bond
The funeral home owner wanted on a warrant out of Denver on charges including abuse of a corpse, forgery and theft, has been arrested. Mile Harford was arrested about 10:40 p.m. Thursday by Englewood police.
Harford, 33, was booked into the Arapahoe County Detention Center. He was arrested not for the warrants out of Denver but for a failure to appear regarding a civil matter that isn't related to the investigation in Denver.
However, he was released on a personal recognizance bond.
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Harford became the center of an investigation after the remains of a woman were discovered in a hearse at a Denver home along with the cremated remains of at least 30 individuals on Feb. 6. The arrest warrant was issued last Friday, Feb. 16.
Investigators learned that Harford owned Apollo Funeral and Cremation Services in Littleton which had been closed to business since September 2022.
Staff from the Denver Medical Examiner's Office and officers from the Denver Police Department were called to the home that Harford was renting, and being evicted from, in the 2500 block of South Quitman Street after the property owner discovered boxes of cremains in a crawlspace.
While examining the scene, investigators from the police department and the medical examiner's office inspected an "inoperable hearse" that was parked in the backyard of the property and discovered the body of a deceased female and additional cremains inside the vehicle. The body has been identified as a 63-year-old woman who died of natural causes in August 2022. Investigators believe the body had been in the hearse since shortly after her passing. She has been identified as Christina Rosales.
As part of the investigation, cremains of at least 30 decedents have been recovered, believed to belong to those who passed away between 2012-2021.
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Investigators are asking that any clients of Apollo Funeral and Cremation Services who did not receive the cremains of a loved one, or experienced any irregularity with, or had concerns about, the services provided by the funeral home, are encouraged to call the hotline set up by the Denver Police Major Crimes Division and Denver Police Victim Assistance Unit at 720-913-6610.
If convicted on the charges of abuse of a corpse, forgery and theft, Harford faces up to 3 years in jail.
Last fall, the gruesome discovery of 190 "improperly stored" bodies was made at the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose. It was October 2023 when Fremont County authorities discovered the scene after neighbors complained of a strong odor. The owners of the funeral home, Jon and Carie Hallford, were arrested in November of last year in Oklahoma on several crimes, including abuse of a corpse, theft, money laundering and forgery, which are all felonies. Twenty-two bodies remain unidentified.
Investigators said there is no connection between the case in Denver and the investigation in Fremont County.