DENVER — A funeral home owner accused of keeping a woman’s corpse in the back of a hearse for more than a year and improperly storing more than 30 cremated remains will appear in court Friday to enter a plea to serve.
Miles Harford will enter a plea during an arraignment in state court in Denver to two counts of forgery, one count of abuse of a corpse and one count of theft.
Harford, 34, is represented by the state’s attorney’s office, which does not comment on his cases to the media.
That’s what authorities say the remains were discovered at Harford’s home during an eviction in February. The body of Christina Rosales, who died of Alzheimer’s disease at age 63, was found covered in blankets in the back of a hearse, and the 35 cremated remains are believed to have been stashed throughout the property, from the hearse to the crawl space.
It’s the latest in a series of prosecutions over the past decade involving Colorado funeral homes, including one that illegally sold body parts and another involving nearly 200 bodies were left to rot and families were allegedly given fake ashes.
Colorado’s funeral home regulations are among the weakest in the country, but such cases have led to reforms. This year, Governor Jared Polis two bills signed into law to overhaul industry oversight and bring Colorado in line with most other states.