Regina woman pleads to thief to return urn with mom’s ashes

When Kristin Vogel lost her mother to cancer, she said she lost her best friend and soulmate.

She lost the last part of her mother when a thief took the urn that contained her ashes from Vogel’s home sometime Monday.

Vogel said her husband returned home from work to find the gate and the doors open. She said not much was taken, but one item that was cannot be replaced: the urn.

“I broke down right away,” she said of the moment she noticed the urn was gone.

Her husband searched the house and the neighbourhood – checking in alleyways and garbage cans – but the urn could not be located.

“That’s probably, of all the items, the most important one that means the most that you just can’t replace.”

Vogel said her mom died in December after a lengthy six-year battle with cancer. Some of her ashes were buried in a family plot in Regina. But some stayed with Vogel, with hopes of bringing them to Mexico.

“It was just a happy place for us,” Vogel said of the place she visited often with her mom on mother-daughter trips. “Everything we went through these past few years, it meant so much to watch her struggle then know I could take these back to our happy place.”

Just last week, she booked a trip to Mexico for November. She’s now questioning if she’ll go empty-handed.

“Knowing those ashes aren’t with anyone that loves her or not knowing where they are is just disgusting feeling,” she said Tuesday. “I don’t believe (the thief) knew what it was.”

Still, Vogel remains as optimistic as she can be. She’s turned to social media, hoping she can reach someone who knows something.

She hopes someone will bring them back to her, whether that means leaving them on her property or in her mailbox, reaching out to her via social media or returning the urn to the police or Paragon’s Funeral Home.

“Just get them somewhere that can get them back to me. I don’t care about anything else,” she said. “I like to think that good things happen to good people and there are lots of people I know are touched by this so I’m hoping that someone will do the right thing.”

Regina police have taken the unusual step of releasing information about the break-and-enter. But they say this case is set apart from others.

Police confirm they received a report at 4:12 p.m. from a couple on the 100 block of Cornwall Street. An officer was sent to the home.

The report police received was sometime on Monday between 7 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., someone forced their way into the couple’s home by prying the backdoor open.

The urn was identified as stolen.

The forensics unit came to check for fingerprints and other forensic evidence, as well as interview neighbours.

As of Tuesday afternoon, no suspects have been identified.

Vogel asks that people check their alleys and garbage cans for the urn. It has been described as six inches tall and four to six inches wide, made from stone and ceramic and cream in colour.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.