DENVER — The former Denver-area funeral home owner accused of storing human remains and cremains at a home he rented pleaded guilty Monday to charges of abusing a corpse and theft.
Miles Harford was facing a total of 12 counts of corpse abuse, forgery and theft, and pleaded guilty to two of them. The other 10 counts were dismissed. As part of the plea deal, though, the judge required all victims be named within the two charges Harford pleaded guilty to and said Harford would be liable for restitution on all counts including those that were dismissed, according to The Associated Press.
His arraignment had been delayed several times. Harford is represented by lawyers from the state public defender’s office, which does not comment on its cases to the media, according to the AP.
Harford was arrested last February after a woman’s remains and the cremated remains of at least 30 other people were found at the Denver property he previously rented on Quitman Street. It was determined that a 63-year-old woman’s body, later identified as Christina Rosales had been inside a hearse in the driveway of the home for more than a year.
Prosecutors said Harford had given the deceased woman's family the cremated remains of a different person, and made the family believe the woman had been appropriately cremated.
“Miles Harford was entrusted by friends and family of the deceased with providing professional and dignified cremation services. He violated that trust in an unimaginably harmful way — robbing those friends and family of their peace of mind and opportunity to grieve," said Denver District Attorney John Walsh. "Mr. Harford is now accepting responsibility for those actions, which we hope will provide a measure of comfort to the friends and family of the deceased."
Harford is the former owner of Apollo Funeral and Cremation Services in Littleton, which opened in 2012 and closed in September 2022.
His sentencing was scheduled for June 9.
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