DENVER — A former Denver-area funeral home owner accused of storing human remains and cremains at his rental home pleaded guilty on Monday as part of a plea deal.
Miles Harford, who previously owned Apollo Funeral and Cremation Services in Littleton, pleaded guilty to two charges — abusing a corpse and theft.
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, the judge required all victims to 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.
Harford's arrest came last February after authorities discovered the cremated remains of at least 30 people hidden around his rental property in Denver.
Investigators also found the body of 63-year-old Christina Rosales, who died of Alzheimer's, in a hearse outside of his home. It was determined that her body had been stored in the hearse for over a year.
Prosecutors said Harford had given Rosales' family the cremated remains of a different person and made the family believe she had been appropriately cremated.
Denver7 sat down with Rosales' twin sister, Cathy Vorndran, following Harford's plea agreement.
"It's bad enough losing your twin sister and you're two peas in a pod all your life, and then everything we did at her funeral was not even her," she said. "When we finally brought her in to have her cremated again, that's when I was at peace."
Denver
More charges against CO funeral home owner who had remains, cremains at his home
Vorndran said she was relieved to hear Harford's guilty plea.
"Him pleading guilty was more than I needed to hear today. So I was happy for that," she added.
Rosales' husband, George, said the hearing was one step closer to justice and closure for his wife.
"He took advantage of so many people. And so I'm glad that he's getting to that point to where he's confessed that he's done it and and we can move on, and hopefully we can put my wife to rest finally," Rosales said.
Harford's sentencing is scheduled for June 9 at 1:30 p.m.
Rosales' family is hoping he will get the maximum punishment — 18 months in prison — since that is around the same time her body was kept in the hearse.
“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. 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,” said Denver District Attorney John Walsh in a statement. “I want to recognize the prosecutors, investigators and victim advocates in my office, as well as the detectives with the Denver Police Department’s Homicide and Fraud Units, whose work on the case brought about this successful outcome.”
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