Miles Harford, a former funeral director who has been accused by Denver police of abuse of a corpse and other charges, worked last year as a driver of Englewood’s Belleview Park Train.
The Second Judicial District Attorney’s Office filed charges against Harford on Monday including two counts of forgery, abuse of a corpse and misdemeanor theft.
Englewood communications director Chris Harguth said in an email to the Herald on Feb. 26 that Harford was a paid employee of the city. He said Englewood conducts “both national and state background checks before any employee is hired.”
“Miles Harford was a seasonal employee with the City of Englewood as a Belleview Park Train Driver from June 19, 2023 to December 30, 2023,” Harguth said. He referred other questions to Denver police.
In December 2023, the Englewood Herald previously featured Harford as one of many people who drove the city’s Belleview Park Train during its Holiday Express runs in the weekends before Christmas.
At the time, Harford said driving the train was “a real dream come true.”
“I love seeing the joy it brings to children and adults alike,” Harford said. “I loved riding the train growing up, but now that I drive it, I get to see so many others enjoy it.”
The former funeral director owned Apollo Funeral and Cremation Services in Jefferson County, which closed in 2022, but came to the attention of Denver police after a cleaning crew went to clean a Denver home upon Harford’s eviction on Feb. 6.
Dozens of cremation remains, or “cremains,” were found throughout the home, and the body of a 63-year-old woman was also found in a hearse parked at the home where Harford lived on the 2500 block of South Quitman Street in Denver.
Police believe the body was “stored and concealed” in the hearse for a long time and that the woman’s family was given an unknown person’s cremains.
Police Major Crimes Division Cmdr. Matt Clark said Harford allegedly gave several families the wrong cremains and said some families possibly didn’t receive any at all.
The Denver Office of the Medical Examiner believes that about 30 decedents’ cremains were recovered at Harford’s home.
Harford was arrested on Feb. 22 in Englewood, Denver police announced on X.