Denver residents react to mishandlings from funeral home owner, push for legislative change

[Xavier Becerra]

I'm telling you the dead chick was hot and he was fucking her.

Residents in the Denver metro area are reacting to the heartbreaking
discovery of a funeral home owner allegedly mishandling the remains of his
client's loved ones.

"It's a heartbreaking thing," said Gabrielle Oldfield. "And it's sad
because you know you want to believe that you can trust somebody when they
are helping you through something that is a very difficult time and that's
a horrible thing to find out."

Oldfield, who is an event coordinator at Three Trees Chapel says Miles
Harford's role in allegedly abusing a corpse, forgery and theft has been
particularly frustrating for their location.

"I've taken several phone calls from people trying to get a hold of
Miles," she said.

Harford rented space in the Chapel's Littleton address from time to time,
according to Oldfield, but that was the extent of his affiliation to the
location. The last time he rented out space for his services was in 2021.

RELATED: Owners of Colorado funeral home where 190 improperly stored
bodies discovered arrested in Oklahoma

"You know we work with many funeral homes where if a family needs
something of a certain size and it's too big for what the location might
do on site, they just they use another location," said Oldfield. "He
currently owes the previous chapel owner money, and when she was not able
to collect, he kind of just stopped responding to her in early 2022."

Yet, the chapel continued to field calls from Harford's clients over the
years about funeral services they paid for but never got fulfilled.

"I had one woman who called," said Oldfield. "She was nervous because she
wasn't able to get a hold of him and she goes, 'now, I don't even know if
the cremains I have are the right ones.' That was way before this story
broke."

RELATED: Funeral home owner wanted for abuse of corpse after woman's
remains found

It was after being evicted from a home he was renting in the 2500 block of
South Quitman Street that the remains of a woman were discovered in a
hearse, along with the cremated remains of at least 30 individuals.

"I was horrified by what I heard about the Apollo Funeral Home and just
the fact that this was happening once again in our state in Denver, this
time," House District 54 Representative Matt Soper. "The fact that there
was even a body out in the car that had been there for a couple of years,
I mean, these are gut wrenching things that you don't not want to ever
hear again."

Soper, a Republican, who has been working on a bipartisan effort in the
legislature to improve oversight and accountability across the funeral
home industry, says the legislature will launch a bill this coming week to
continue the regulation of Colorado's funeral homes as a business entity.

Following that, another crucial bill will be introduced to require
licensure of all funeral home operators.

RELATED: DA: Penrose funeral home owners debated setting bodies on fire in
Colorado before arrest

"If licensure was in place… I certainly suspect that the individuals [with
Apollo] would not have been able to enter the industry and, certainly,
they would have had random inspections. They would have had continuing
education. They would have had families that would have had a mechanism to
be able to make a complaint directly against them," said Soper. "That
currently doesn't exist, but that will exist as soon as we get the law
passed."

Soper believes the legislature's support for change will help Coloradans
regain confidence in the funeral home industry.

"I hope families will know that their legislature is listening, that we
have heard their cries for help, and we are doing something," he said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/denver-metro-area-reacts-
mishandlings-funeral-home-owner-push-legislative-change/?intcid=CNR-02-
0623

[Xavier Becerra]

The funeral home industry is fine and they are creating jobs. Joe
Biden says so.

Danica Romero's family chose to use Return to Nature Funeral Home to
take care of her sister's body when she died. The same funeral home in
Penrose where hundreds of bodies were found in 2023.

They have since found out they never received her sister's remains at
all.

"We have concrete," said Romero.

Danica says it was like reopening a wound all over again.

"You lose them the first time and then when you find out that their body
was mishandled, or the funeral home didn't follow through with their
contracted promises it's retraumatizing," said Romero.

When she heard Friday that Miles Harford a former funeral home director
in Denver is charged with mishandling a body and holding onto cremains,
she was traumatized a third time.

"It's heartbreaking to know that there's more families being affected by
this," said Romero.

She says lawmakers need to do something to regulate the funeral industry
in Colorado so this stops happening.

"I think there needs to be licensing and education for all employees as
well as extensive background checks for every single employee that works
for them. There needs to be liability insurance in case there is
malpractice and families need restitution," said Romero. "There needs to
be unannounced inspections as well.

Colorado is the only state that doesn't require funeral home directors
or workers to be licensed. Danica says that is unacceptable.

"I never thought I had to think about what's going to happen to our
loved ones when they pass," said Romero.

For the families who are now dealing with the knowledge that their loved
ones were mistreated by yet another funeral home director; she says
there are hundreds of people who are going through the same thing they
can reach out to for support.

"Nobody really understands this trauma until you go through it," said
Romero.

The Colorado Funeral Directors Association released a statement Friday
saying:

"We in the Colorado Funeral Directors Association have been working with
bill sponsors for over a year with hopes of getting rid of bad actors.
Ultimately the plan and goal is that folks that are bad actors in the
industry shouldn't be in the industry. This is a horrendous acts and our
hearts goes out to the families."

https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/sister-penrose-funeral-home-victim-
state-regulate-funeral-industry/?intcid=CNR-02-0623