True Crime Lite: What Remains?
Every grown adult has at least one memory from their teenage years that makes them cringe to recall it. Something that was either so embarrassing, or so stupid, that you almost don't want to share it with anyone. Most of us haven't had that moment published all over the internet among stories of the stupidest criminals, though.
In December 2010, Reader's Digest states that a woman's home was burglarized in the central Florida area of Silver Springs Shores. The house was ransacked for electronics, jewelry, and what the robbers assumed to be three containers of cocaine. According to CNN, the containers of cocaine were actually urns filled with the cremated remains of the homeowner's father and two Great Danes.
The robbers, as Reuters reported, were easily caught. The five teenagers involved had not finished with their crime spree and were caught attempting to burglarize another home. The teens, truly under the belief that they were in possession of cocaine, actually tried to snort the cremated remains. It didn't take them long to figure out that they hadn't stumbled upon an incredible amount of drugs just sitting out in someone's home, but the remains of that person's loved ones. Briefly, the kids discussed returning the urns to where they came from, but quickly decided against that. They thought that the urns would be dusted for prints if they were returned, and the teens had left their prints all over them. It made much more sense to them to just toss them into a lake instead.
All five teenagers were jailed on numerous burglary charges, among others. Divers working for the Marion County sheriff's department searched the lake, hoping to be able to return the ashes to the woman that was robbed. In all of the valuables that were stolen, those three urns were worth more to her than all of the rest put together.
As earth-shattering and heart-breaking as the loss of a parent is, I can't imagine how devastating it would be to lose that parent a second time to a stupid burglar. I truly hope and pray that this experience served as a much-needed wake-up call for these kids. If snorting the cremated ashes of a stranger's loved one doesn't put some things into perspective then nothing will.
Some takeaways from this story: Some people really will steal anything. While researching this story in particular, I found that this has happened somewhere else just a few years after this incident. In this instance, the robber had stolen his own grandfather's ashes and tasted them, mistaking them for cocaine. Apparently in a break-in even the cremated remains of loved ones aren't safe these days.