DENVER — A former funeral director is accused of mishandling the ashes of his landlord’s stepson, which were found inside a Denver home during an eviction, 9NEWS Investigates has learned.
This week, prosecutors added three charges of abuse of a corpse against Miles Harford, the former owner of Apollo Funeral & Cremation Services. Harford was already awaiting trial on accusations that he kept a woman’s body inside a broken-down hearse in the backyard of the home for more than a year.
One of the added charges names Caden Williamson, the stepson of Kelly Williamson, who owned the home where the eviction occurred.
In her first interview since Harford’s arrest, Williamson told 9NEWS Consumer Investigator Steve Staeger that police contacted her family days after discovering the woman’s body and also boxes and urns filled with cremated remains. They told her family that Caden’s cremated remains were among the other boxes scattered around the home.
“We're not sure we have him,” Kelly Williamson said. “Somebody else who we didn't give permission to still had a part of someone you've loved dearly. It's just so wrong.”
The Williamsons' relationship with Harford
Williamson said her family met Harford when her stepson passed away suddenly in 2019. Harford handled his funeral arrangements and gave the family what they thought were Caden’s cremated remains.
“My husband kept a relationship with him and kept in touch with him,” Williamson said. “We got a rental house, and we knew he was looking for a new place to live.”
In February 2023, the family decided to rent the former home of Williamson’s grandparents to Harford. She said the problems started right away.
“The excuses started. I mean, it was seriously Day One, and we were like ‘oh man … red flag,’” she said. “He never paid on time, always had some excuse for why he couldn't pay his rent. Usually, it had to do with grieving families or services or how he was attending to his grieving families or his health problems.”
In November of that year, she said, rent payments stopped. Williamson initiated the eviction process.
‘What about the hearse?’
On Feb. 6, 2024, Williamson said she arrived at the home to move out Harford’s things.
“The place was kind of in shambles,” Williamson said, describing furniture and belongings scattered all over the home.
She said Harford wasn’t there at the time, but his mother was. Williamson said as they were moving belongings out of the home, the mother asked to borrow Williamson’s phone to contact her son.
“The sheriff office is here and all your [redacted] is out in the front yard so I need to get a hold of you so I can come get you so we can get this,” reads a screenshot of the message sent to Harford that day.
“What about the hearse,” Harford later responds in the screenshot of the message.
“He knew it, you know,” Williamson said in an interview Monday with 9NEWS.
After the text message, Williamson said her family members who were helping her clear out the house started to find strange items scattered around – men’s suits and women’s dresses in different sizes, and medical and identification cards.
“Things that didn't belong to him,” she said. “There's no reason he should have had those things.”
“I walked outside, and I was trying to figure out what to do with the hearse in the backyard," she said. "That was a big one. It was going to be expensive for me to get towed.”
She said she started to pick up trash scattered around the backyard and made a surprising discovery.
“There were probably five or six urns, and one of them was a veteran,” she said.
She told the sheriff’s deputy overseeing the eviction what she found, but the sheriff didn’t seem bothered by it.
Then she found more.
“There are names on these remains, you know,” she said. “And they're just outside in the trash. ... There probably 10 to 12 of them underneath the house. I think there were a couple in his bedroom. They were all over the place.”
Williamson said she moved some rugs stacked on the hearse away and found what appeared to be a casket hoist on the ground next to the vehicle.
“So we opened [the hearse], and it was like a horrific smell,” she said. “And we didn't, we didn't know what that smell was, but the detectives did.”
At that point, police stepped in to end the eviction and start an investigation.
Williamson said a deputy later approached her to tell her they had found a body inside the hearse.
“I was like, oh my gosh, how awful,” she said.
Harford disappears
Williamson said Harford never was at the home during the eviction. She finished the process and returned to her home in Oklahoma.
Ten days after the eviction, on Feb. 16, Denver Police held a news conference announcing charges against Harford for storing the body of Christina Rosales in the hearse for more than a year as his funeral home business collapsed.
At the time, Denver Police said they expected Harford to turn himself in, but he never did. Police issued a warrant for his arrest.
On Feb. 23, Englewood Police arrested Harford after responding to a call about an intoxicated person in the 4800 block of Fox Street. In bodyworn camera video obtained by 9NEWS Investigates, Harford is seen being handcuffed in a hospital bed.
The fact that Harford didn't turn himself in and was arrested wasn’t a surprise to Williamson.
“He is the con of all con artists, and I know that firsthand,” she said. “He'll lie to you and use any excuse.”
The call from police
When she returned to Oklahoma, Williamson said her husband got a call from Denver Police. The officer told him Caden’s remains were found among the dozens of others inside their Denver rental.
“In my head, I didn't want to think that he was one of those boxes, you know, being stored in some weird place in some weird plastic box,” she said.
The family believed they had Caden’s remains. Now they aren’t sure what to believe.
“He hasn't apologized to anyone. He hasn't admitted that he's done it,” she said. “He’s just sulking away.”
On Monday, Harford appeared at a court hearing via video conference to hear that a judge granted an order to add seven new charges to his case – including a felony abuse of corpse charge for the way he allegedly mishandled Caden’s remains.
“You know, he doesn't even show up to court," Williamson said. "He's hiding behind the camera. You know, like, I just wish he would man up and apologize and move forward.”
Contact 9NEWS Consumer Investigator Steve Staeger with tips on this or any story.