Tacoma mom pleads for return of stolen urn with son’s ashes

A Tacoma mother made a heartbreaking discovery after returning home from a Leavenworth trip Sunday: Someone had broken into her home and stolen jewelry and an urn containing her son’s ashes.

Melissa Carter said she doesn’t care if she ever gets the jewelry back but hopes someone will return the urn.

“I feel so violated,” said Carter. “I’m a single mom and to come home and have my house broken into and my son’s urn gone, which is my biggest concern; that’s all I have of him -- I just would love to get that back.”

Carter said the urn contained ashes of her son Jacob who passed away while she was six months pregnant in 2012.

“I never had the chance to hold him,” said Carter.

The burglary happened at her home on South Union Avenue near 31st Street. Carter said she had been out of town in Leavenworth for a few days and showed KIRO 7 Sunday where the burglar smashed a window in her son’s bedroom and entered the home.

Tacoma police confirmed they’re now investigating and planned to send a forensics team to the house Monday.

The family said they’ve been working to find surveillance video and have even visited pawn shops to try to find the urn.

"The first words out of my daughter's mouth was, ‘Jacob's urn's gone,’ and I didn't hear a lot after that because it was so devastating,” said Carter’s mother Jet Haggarty. “It's priceless."

Contact Tacoma police with information related to the stolen urn.

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