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Thief takes son's ashes

The parents say the urn is the only stolen property they want to recover.

By THOMAS LAKE
Published January 10, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Janel Schroeder-Norton] Steven Greene and his wife Eve, background, want back the urn and the ashes of their late son, Zachary, which were stolen Monday.

NEW PORT RICHEY - The first thief was cancer and it took Zachary at age 4. He lost his white-blond curls, shrank to skin and bones. He wished for one last train ride but never got to go.

His parents put his ashes on the mantel next to a tiny firetruck he'd built with Play-Doh. Eve and Steven Greene lost their only child in 2005, and on Monday they were plundered again.

Eve came home around 5:30 p.m. to find chaos. Jewelry and guitars missing, mud all over the place, footprints on an armchair. The scene was disconcerting enough at first glance. Then she looked at the mantle, and her heart sank.

A blue velvet box containing a brass urn, perhaps 4 inches tall, was gone. It had some of Zachary's ashes.

The police reconstructed the crime. It appeared someone had crawled in the kitchen window, snacked on some Cheerios, turned Zachary's old pillowcases into loot bags, filled them with about $10,000 worth of goods and then scrambled out the back door when Eve began coming in the front.

Eve sells real estate, and Steven owns a painting company. They couldn't figure out why a burglar would take an urn worth almost nothing but sentiment.

"I would really hate for it to be tossed in the garbage somewhere," Eve said. "I'm sure they didn't know what they were taking."

Her sister formed a search party that night. Pam Silvis, who also was Zachary's godmother, led a group of about six friends through the neighborhood just southeast of downtown, knocking on doors and shining flashlights in Dumpsters. Nothing.

The police had made no arrest by Tuesday, and the goods had not been recovered. Eve and Steven said they didn't care about the valuables. They only hoped the thief could muster enough decency to return the urn that holds their dead son's ashes.

"Just drop it off somewhere with a note on it," Steven said. "And that'll be that."

Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245.

[Last modified January 10, 2007, 00:43:02]