A former Littleton funeral director who allegedly scammed dozens of Colorado families as they grieved loved ones pleaded guilty on Monday to a single felony count of abusing a corpse.

Miles Harford, 34, appeared in Denver District Court Monday to accept a plea deal specifying if he pleaded guilty to the one count, 10 others would be dropped. He also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of theft. The guilty pleas cover incidents during a nearly five-year period between spring in 2019 and February 2024.

Harford is the former owner of Apollo Funeral and Cremation Services.

He is scheduled for a sentencing hearing at 1:30 p.m. June 9, where he will face up to 18 months in prison on the felony count. The guilty plea includes naming all the victims connected to the abuse of corpse and theft cases.

Some of the incidents occurred as early as May 2019 and others started in August 2023 — six months before police discovered a body and cremains on the property of a house Harford rented.

Englewood police arrested Harford on Feb. 27, 2024, weeks after a bizarre series of events that shocked Denver’s Front Range and sent some of Apollo’s customers into a tailspin. That’s when the Denver Medical Examiner’s Office and the city’s police department received a call about a “suspicious occurrence” at a house in a residential area of southwest Denver.

Authorities said the property owner had noticed boxes while cleaning the house after a tenant had been evicted. Inside the boxes, which were stuffed in a dark basement crawlspace, were the cremated remains of 30 people.

An already disturbing situation got even worse when investigators called to the home made the unexpected discovery of Christina Rosales’ body in the back seat of Harford’s hearse. The long white vehicle was parked in a side driveway at his Denver home. Neighbors said his mother was trying to start the disabled vehicle and gave up when the engine wouldn’t turn over.

Cathy Vorndran, Rosales’ twin sister, attended Monday’s plea deal hearing.

“I was relieved,” Vorndran told The Denver Gazette after hearing Harford’s guilty plea. “I was very relieved because I didn’t know what he was going to do.”

“I think I’ve already kind of gotten closure,” Vorndran said. “Because when we did find her body, we did have her actually cremated properly.”

In a news release, Denver District Attorney John Walsh condemned Harford and the trust he broke with families grieving over loved ones.

“Miles Harford was entrusted by friends and family of the deceased with providing professional and dignified cremation services,” Walsh said. “He violated that trust in an unimaginably harmful way — robbing those friends and family of their peace of mind and opportunity to grieve.”

“Mr. Harford is now accepting responsibility for those actions,” Walsh added, “which we hope will provide a measure  of comfort to the friends and family of the deceased.”

Former Denver Gazette reporter Carol McKinley contributed to this report.