The U.S. postal service is offering a $10,000 reward after someone stole a package from a woman’s front porch in Arizona that contained the remains of her father.
Elyse Brink, 25, was devastated to find that someone had stolen an urn containing the ashes of her dad, Ed, who died earlier this month in Oklahoma.
The remains were flown to her home in Tucson, Arizona and her next door neighbor saw the parcel placed on her porch on Tuesday, but by the time Elyse arrived home it had been taken.
Dad, Ed Brink’s, ashes, left, were stolen from the front doorstep of daughter, Elyse, who was planning to take them to her brother, Wes, right, in California over the holidays
The urns were the last remains of her father, Ed, and had been prepared to give to her brother
The urns came in a box which was spotted by a neighbor on the porch. Hours later it had gone
She searched the area including nearby trash cans but it was all in vain.
Elyse had been planning a trip to California in order to bring the ashes to her brother.
‘I had it delivered here with the plans to drive to California for the holiday with the urns that I wanted to give my brother,’ she said. ‘I started crying. Because I knew if the package was delivered and I didn’t sign for it, then where is it?’
‘This was the final step in the process of me saying goodbye to my dad and making the arrangements and sending him home here. And to know that he was so close and then taken. It just breaks my heart,’ Elyse told Tucson News Now.
‘They are a physical reminder of him,’ she said, adding that if she gets the urn back ‘he would be proud of me.’
Elyse says she is devastated and not holding out too much hope that the urns will be returned
Elyse said that the remains were the last physical memory of her father, apart from photos
Ed Brink passed away in Oklahoma at the start of December and was cremated
Officials with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service have now launched a probe because the package should not have been left on the porch without someone signing for it.
The USPS say even just one piece of stolen mail can be punishable by up to five years in federal prison.
Elyse’s last hope is that the ashes are somehow returned back to her but she isn’t holding her breath.
‘I have low optimism about this, and I understand the reality of the situation,’ she said to ABC News. ‘The chances of him being returned or found are very, very slim.’