Police in Lambton are turning to the public for help after searching since January for the owner of an urn containing ashes, found on the banks of the St. Clair River.
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Lambton OPP were contacted Jan. 9, after the urn was spotted on the shore in Corunna, said Const. Travis Parsons.
“Somebody noticed it along the banks… picked it up and got back to us once they realized what it was,” he said.
There are no identifying marks on the urn police described as small, save a tag with the name for Belton-Stroup Funeral Home in Ohio, he said.
“They said it was probably about 10 years since they’ve carried this specific design of urn,” Parsons said funeral home officials told OPP.
Since, police have “kind of exhausted our investigative avenues,” he said.
There are urns designed to sink in water and release ashes over time, he said.
“But this one here is not that design.”
Police have no idea how long it’s been in the water or where it came from, he said, noting officers have been in touch with the Bereavement Authority of Ontario and will work with the authority to make final arrangements for the remains if an owner can’ t be found.
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“It would be great if we could resolve it happily and get the remains back to a family member,” Parsons said, adding this is the first missing urn case he’s heard of with Lambton OPP, though there may have been others in other jurisdictions.
“This is a first for me,” he said.
“I’ve been here in Lambton for almost 26 years.”
Anyone with information is asked to call police at 519-882-1011 or 1-888-310-1122.
Tyler Sylvester, a funeral director with Belton-Stroup in Fairborn, Ohio said he hadn’t heard about the discovered urn, but noted the funeral home’s standard practice after cremation is to include a coin with a unique cremation number, as well as a laminated tag with identifying information of the deceased.
An exception to this practice is when ashes are split between multiple “keepsake urns,” Sylvester said.
-with files from Noah Brennan
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