'It's terrible': Family searches for urn containing ashes stolen from Victoria home

Victoria -

A Victoria family is reaching out to the community in an effort to track down a stolen urn that contained a family member's ashes.

Victoria police say the urn is believed have been stolen sometime between July 27 and Aug. 1, when the home was unoccupied.

Resident Madeline Milne says she heard about the theft on Monday afternoon. Milne has been in Kelowna for work for the past several weeks, and her roommate had been gone for the August long weekend.

When her roommate returned on Monday, she noticed the back door of the home was open.

"She didn't immediately notice anything was missing but then (after) a quick look around she realized the urn was missing," said Milne.

Milne says there was no sign of forced entry.

The roommate called Victoria police and Milne's family posted an appeal on social media for help tracking down the urn.

Since then, the post has garnered thousands of reactions and more than 600 comments, according to Milne.

"That box has been in our family for about 15 years now, and it's very sentimental," she said.

The urn, known as a bentwood box, was purchased by Milne's mother after her stepfather passed away.

A portion of her stepfather's ashes, and all of her mother's ashes, were inside of the box when it was stolen, she says.

"It's terrible," she said. "My mother would probably care less (about the box), but just the indignity of being tossed into a garbage can or on the side of the road, that's horrific."

According to police and Milne, nothing else was stolen from inside the home.

"I can tell you this feels very disappointing and somewhat disturbing to learn that a family member – family members in this case – ashes were in the urn that was clearly targeted," said Victoria police Const. Cam MacIntyre.

"When you look at all the other available options in what that thief could have targeted, and they took the urn," he said.

Milne learned some positive news on Tuesday afternoon, however.

She says someone from Sands Funeral Home contacted her on Monday evening saying they had received some ashes over the weekend.

The funeral home then set out to identify the remains, and on Tuesday afternoon the funeral home told Milne that the ashes were confirmed to be her mother's.

The remains of her stepfather, and the bentwood box itself, remain missing at this time.

Milne's mother, Moralea Milne, was a Metchosin municipal councillor who died in a car crash in 2018. This past weekend marked the third anniversary of her passing.

Anyone with information on the urn or the incident is asked to call Victoria police at 250-995-7654 or contact Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.