CO - Former Funeral Home Director Arrested, Accused of Storing Body in Hearse for 2 Years, Hoarding Cremains 6 Feb 2024

[lightofmine99]

A Former Funeral Home Owner Has Been Arrested After a Corpse Lay in a Hearse for 2 Years​

A grisly scene of urns stashed around the Harford property, from a crawl space to inside the hearse where the 63-year-old woman's body lay, was uncovered in early February during a court-ordered eviction at Harford's home, police said.

While searching the property, police opened the door of the hearse to a “foul odor,” seeing the outline of the human body seemingly strapped to the gurney and covered by blankets, according to the arrest affidavit.

Harford owned Apollo Funeral & Cremation Services in the Denver suburb of Littleton, police said, and the hoarded cremains appear to be those of people who died from 2012 to 2021. The funeral home has been closed since September 2022.

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2024-02-23/a-former-funeral-home-owner-has-been-arrested-after-a-corpse-lay-in-a-hearse-for-2-years

ARCHIVE

Yet another Colorado funeral home "oopsie" moment.

 

[lightofmine99]

Further investigation revealed Harford allegedly struggled financially and accumulated a large amount of debt. He was unable to complete cremations as a result. Unbeknownst to families, Harford reportedly gave families other people’s cremains so that funeral services could be held.

Ok, so what happened to the bodies whose cremations he couldn't complete?

 

[GoBuckeyes]

How does this keep happening? Isn't there ANY oversight of these places? For how much it costs for cremation and/or burial, this should never happen. I can't imagine the psychological trauma this inflicts on the surviving families. The sentences for cases like this always seem much too short, imo.

 

[SMK777]

How does this keep happening? Isn't there ANY oversight of these places? For how much it costs for cremation and/or burial, this should never happen. I can't imagine the psychological trauma this inflicts on the surviving families. The sentences for cases like this always seem much too short, imo.

It’s very disturbing. I’ve read many like this, and additionally with pet cremation and burial as well.

 

[SMK777]

So, they take the money, and then don’t pay anyone to do the actual work, and it back piles to the point where they can no longer catch up?
I’m trying to understand how this happens.

DENVER (AP) — A former funeral home owner accused of keeping a woman's corpse in the back of a hearse for two years and hoarding the cremated remains of 35 people has been arrested, authorities said.
Thursday night's arrest of Miles Harford, 33, comes in connection with the latest in a series of offenses by Colorado funeral home owners, including the discovery of nearly 200 decomposing bodies in a bug-infested funeral home facility last year. The finds have underscored the laxness of state funeral home regulations and have brought pressure on lawmakers to try to strengthen the laws.

 

[lightofmine99]

How does this keep happening? Isn't there ANY oversight of these places? For how much it costs for cremation and/or burial, this should never happen. I can't imagine the psychological trauma this inflicts on the surviving families. The sentences for cases like this always seem much too short, imo.

Colorado has extremely lax laws for funeral homes and by extension the funeral industry. Not so sure about morticians (not all funeral directors are also morticians). Theirs are the most lax of all the states. It looks like that will be changing soon.

Not to say that scandals like this haven't happened anywhere else in America (they have) but we've had so many out of Colorado recently.

 

[LordMo]

iirc it was explained to me by someone who works for a funeral home, that the seeming increase in these cases over the past few years is COVID. A lot of these places weren't equipped for the volume they were receiving, so they over-promised and fell drastically behind. (e: not saying that's all of them, but if you feel like you've been hearing about more of them lately, you're probably not wrong)

The corpse in a hearse for two years is a new one to me.

 

[SMK777]

The corpse in a hearse for two years is a new one to me.

Snipped for focus.
Right, I can certainly understand Covid making the volume of work too much to keep up with.
But what would be the reason for the above?

 

[lightofmine99]

Colorado funeral home owner who kept body inside a hearse for over a year pleads guilty

Colorado funeral home owner who kept body inside a hearse for over a year pleads guilty

Miles Harford, 34, pleaded guilty on April 14 to one felony count of abuse of a corpse and one misdemeanor count of theft, prosecutors announced.

www.usatoday.com

4 - 15 - 25

 

[GoJacks]

....yah we have a problem here. Yikes.