EDMONTON — When Elizabeth Hanson and her husband, Wayne, returned home in late December after spending Christmas with their son in Halifax, they knew something wasn’t right.
“When we drove into our yard we saw that our garage door was open and that my car, my Honda CRV, was not in the garage,” Elizabeth said Sunday. “When we came up to the house the front door had been kicked open.”
The Hansons walked into their home, on a rural property south of Sylvan Lake, to find they had been robbed. The drawers of their cabinets and dressers had been pulled out and rifled through. Things had been thrown around and knocked off desks and shelves.
And when Elizabeth went upstairs to her bedroom closet, she noticed the urn containing her mother’s ashes was missing.
“I don’t think they really knew what they had taken. I’m guessing they probably didn’t take the time to really look at it,” she said.
“You feel pretty violated and vulnerable and, you know, angry, sad; a whole lot of emotions. It’s sort of a roller coaster.”
Elizabeth’s jewellery box was also taken in the break-in.
“My mother’s wedding ring was in that box and my aunt’s engagement ring.”
The couple’s 10-month-old kittens, Tom and Jerry, were also nowhere to be found.
“They had a little heated house inside our shop and that’s where they lived. They had a little pet door so they could come and go from the shop. They had a job to do: keep the mice away from the house and they did a good job,” Elizabeth said Sunday evening.
When the Hansons went out to their garage they noticed their safe was gone. The safe was locked and contained 11 firearms, police said.
A number of other items were stolen in the break-in, including laptops, passports and documents from Elizabeth’s dad’s time in the war.
“Those are things that, they don’t really probably have a lot of monetary value, but they do to us,” she said.
RCMP believe the home was broken into sometime between Dec. 17 and Dec. 27, 2014 while the couple was away. Officers put out a public plea Sunday afternoon in hopes of finding the urn and other stolen items.
“Obviously, this item is of significant sentimental importance to the victim’s family,” Sylvan Lake RCMP said.
The urn is described as a handmade wooden box with a floral design on it. Elizabeth said her father’s urn was also in the bedroom closet, but it was not taken.
“We would really like to have some closure to this and get the urn back. I mean, I would love to have my mother’s and my aunt’s rings back. My husband would love to have his guns back … They had belonged to his parents and his uncles.”
The Hansons’ CRV was later located in Penhold. Anyone with any information about the break and enter is asked to contact Sylvan Lake RCMP at 403-858-7200. Anonymous information can be submitted to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online.
RCMP urge the person(s) responsible for the break-in to drop off the sentimental items at any police station.
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