A mom from Washington state has issued a heartbreaking Facebook plea after becoming the victim of a recent home burglary. As Melissa Carter recently told Today Parents, it happened December 29, when she returned home to find that a window had been smashed and an intruder had ransacked her home before fleeing. Carter immediately called the police, but says her heart sank when she realized they took something that could never be replaced: her late son's ashes, which were lovingly stored in a heart-shaped urn.
When the mom returned home December 29, she immediately noticed that something was wrong.
For starters, the home was "freezing cold" — which she later learned was because a bedroom window had been smashed in. As she walked around the home, it became clear that someone had rifled through her things.
"My living room was still kind of chaotic from Christmas, but it appeared nothing had been touched," Carter told Today. "My computer was still here, my TV was still here, but I noticed that all the bedroom doors were open … I turned to my left and I saw that [my] son's door is wide open, and I see his bedroom door completely smashed in. I immediately realized someone broke into my home."
That sudden realization left her feeling deeply violated. But when she noticed that her late son's ashes had been stolen, Carter became "panicked."
The ashes were stored in a silver, heart-shaped urn engraved with the inscription "Jacob Carter, April 13, 2012."
"I immediately noticed that someone had gone through my dresser," she told Today. "The urn of my son, Jacob, was in there, along with all of my jewelry, and I noticed that the lid was off. All but a couple small necklaces were gone, and so I start looking around, trying to see if maybe someone realized it was an urn and dropped it, and I couldn't find it anywhere."
Making the urn even more precious to the mother is that she says it's all she has left of her baby boy, who was lost when Carter was just six months pregnant with him.
"Praying my little Jacob can come back to me," the grieving mom wrote in a December 29 Facebook post. "I am so heartbroken that someone broke into my home while I was gone and took his urn. That’s all I had of my baby."
Police are tirelessly searching for a possible suspect, but so far are coming up dry.
According to Today, a forensics team was only able to find one full fingerprint in the home, but has no other leads. Still, that doesn't mean the investigation is coming to a close.
"We're hoping someone will find the urn, at least, and call it in," Harrow told the outlet, adding that "it's obviously heartbreaking for this mother."
Carter, who is also mom to a kindergarten-aged son named Mason, admits that the entire ordeal has left her feeling emotionally "broken."
"I'm a single mom, and I'm doing my best to raise my son, but I'm also grieving the fact that somebody stole something so precious to me," she told Today. "It's been really hard trying to be really, really strong for my son, but inside, I feel so broken right now."
Her mother, Jeanette Guddat Haggerty, told the outlet she isn't giving up hope this story will have a happy ending.
"I am a realist and an optimist, but I will never give up hope that someday, Jacob's urn will find its way back to our family," Haggerty said. "We are a strong family, and there are so many wonderful people in this world that have reached out."
