DENVER, COLORADO – A former funeral service operator is facing multiple charges after human remains were found at a house in Southwest Denver during an eviction. The owners of the house discovered boxes containing cremated human remains, uncovering a disturbing situation where the cremated remains of at least 30 people were found.
The tenant, identified as Miles Harford, 33, operated Apollo Funeral and Cremation Services in Littleton, Colorado, from 2012 till 2022. The Denver Sheriff Department served an eviction order at the address, and a deputy was present when the homeowners found the remains in the crawl space.
Investigators from the Denver Police Department and the medical examiner’s office responded to the home to examine and recover the remains. They also found an inoperable hearse in the backyard of the home, containing additional urns as well as the body of a woman covered with a blanket.
The medical examiner’s team confirmed that the body was that of a 63-year-old woman who died in August 2022. Police Commander Matt Clark stated that the woman’s remains appeared to have been stored and concealed in the hearse since shortly after her passing.
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, stating that he could not find a crematory to process the woman’s body.
The case is not linked to a 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.
Authorities are working to support the families impacted by the discovery of the remains, as losing a loved one is hard enough, but when the loved one’s remains are mishandled, it adds to the grief and causes further unnecessary pain. A hotline has been established for concerned families, and the police are working to identify the remains without using DNA testing, as obtaining viable DNA samples from cremated remains is difficult.