Police have arrested Miles Harford, 33, former proprietor of Apollo Funeral & Cremation Services, for abuse of a corpse and other crimes. While searching Harford's Denver, Colorado home after he was evicted, they found a parked hearse emanating a "foul odor." Inside the hearse was the corpse of a 63-year-old woman who had been strapped to the gurney and covered with blankets for at least two years since Harford's funeral home had closed.
Along with the corpse, they discovered the cremated remains of 35 individuals in urns around the property.
From ABC News:
Authorities were able to "possibly establish" the identity of 18 individual cremains, according to the arrest affidavit. Police also discovered online reviews of the funeral home with a number of complaints. The families cited poor communication from the company in giving back the remains of their loved ones. One family said they received ashes in an urn labeled with the wrong name, the document shows.
Other Colorado funeral homes have allegedly sent fake ashes to grieving families.
Harford's arrest follows the discovery of 190 decaying bodies in a building run by the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, Colorado, about two hours south of Denver[…]
More than two dozen additional criminal cases and complaints involving Colorado funeral homes since 2007 were detailed in a January report to lawmakers from state regulators. The cases included mishandled bodies, mislabeled remains, ashes never being returned to families and improper embalming of bodies.
