It was around 3:30 a.m. Monday when Teri DeSchutter’s black Dodge pickup truck was broken into outside the house she was staying at in north Lethbridge.
DeSchutter, who is visiting Lethbridge, had several important items in her truck and immediately went outside to see what had been stolen.
“There was garbage on the floor, my insurance and registration was on the seat, they took everything,” she said.
The thief, who crawled through DeSchutter’s back window, also stole something irreplaceable.
“They took my husband’s ashes,” DeSchutter said.
The ashes were stored in a necklace shaped as a bullet and were hanging from her rear-view mirror.
DeSchutter late husband Lorne, her partner of over 20 years, died of a heart attack last April.
“I wanted to be with him forever, but God had other plans for him,” she said.
After losing everything in a house fire, Lorne’s ashes were the last physical connection DeSchutter had to him.
“I lost my house in January, so I have absolutely nothing left of him except for that.”
Choking back tears, she explained that she kept his ashes hanging from her rear-view mirror so that he would go everywhere with her.
“He’s my guardian angel,” DeSchutter said.
She is pleading with the public to help reunite her with Lorne’s ashes and is hopeful that the thief will return the necklace. She is even offering a cash reward for the person to do so.
Having suffered so much already, DeSchutter said the ordeal has been painful and that she feels like she is suddenly losing her husband all over again.
“Whoever returns him, there will be a reward – no questions asked,” she said. “I just want him back.”
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