DENVER — A former funeral director admitted to investigators that he provided grieving family members with the cremated remains of an "indigent person" to deceive them into believing they had the actual remains of their loved one.
That new information comes from a Denver Police Department arrest affidavit for Miles Harford. The 33-year-old was arrested Thursday after Englewood Police received a report about an intoxicated man in the 4800 block of South Fox Street. He was taken into custody on his Denver warrant on charges of abuse of a corpse, theft, and forgery.
He appeared in Denver County Court Friday morning by video from the Arapahoe County Jail. During that brief hearing, a judge granted him a $50,000 personal recognizance bond.
Harford operated Apollo Funeral and Cremation Services in Jefferson County from 2012 to September 2022. Last week, police issued a warrant for his arrest after investigators found the body of Christina Rosales in a hearse at Harford's rented home after he was evicted on Feb. 6.
Rosales died in August 2022. Her family had paid for her to be cremated months before her death, according to the affidavit. Family members told 9NEWS she had been diagnosed with early onset dementia - and later Alzheimer’s disease.
Harford told investigators he charged her family $1,200. He told investigators he knew her family and had previously worked with her at the middle school he attended.
During the investigation, cremated remains of at least 35 people who died between 2012 and 2021 were found at the property on South Quitman Street rented by Harford. Some were in the home, others were in the hearse and a U-Haul parked in front of the home.
Harford voluntarily spoke with investigators and explained that during the COVID-19 pandemic, his business began to "struggle financially" and that he began falling into debt with multiple crematories that he worked with.
He said when Rosales died he took her body to "multiple" crematoriums but said he was "denied service" due to his outstanding debts. The affidavit says, that after being rejected, he told investigators he placed her body in the company hearse and covered it with items such as rugs and blankets to "conceal her body from the public."
“We just wanted people to know that there’s a real person behind all this tragedy,” said Rosales' older sister, Debi Schroeder. “She was an aunt, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife and she was the best.”
Harford "continued" his business with her family and provided them with a death certificate and other documents in preparation for the funeral, the affidavit says. According to the document, since Rosales had not been properly cremated, Harford "made the decision" to utilize the cremains of an "indigent person." He put them in an urn and provided them to Rosales' family and stated he did so "in order to satisfy the grieving family," the affidavit says.
After they were contacted, her family turned over those cremains to investigators who had already collected 35 temporary urns containing cremated remains from Harford's rented property. So far, roughly 18 individuals have been identified.
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