Jewelry Display Boxes

WATERLOO, Iowa --- Eight years ago, death took Suzanne Young's father.

Two weeks ago, a burglar took her father's remains.

"It just crushes me, I'm scared to be in my own home," Young said as she made a plea for the thief to return the oak box that contains a bag of Edwin Ireland's ashes.

The burglar struck early Sept. 16 while Young was spending the night with a friend in Denver.

The intruder broke two windows before kicking in a door of her Garden Avenue home, Young said. The bandit took jewelry boxes from the top of a dresser.

A wooden box adorned with three crosses, the one that contained the ashes, was also on the dresser, and Young suspects it was mistaken for a jewelry box.

"I hope my father explodes in their face. It's sad to say, but that's my father," Young said.

No arrests have been made. A neighbor reported seeing a man loading boxes into a silver pickup truck about 4 a.m. that day. Police seized a half gallon of chocolate milk opened during the burglary.

Ireland --- a U.S. Navy veteran, welder and member of the Outlaw motorcycle club --- died in 2002. After he was cremated, friends and family scattered some of the ashes in Black Hawk Creek so he could make his way back to the ocean.

She and other relatives kept the remaining ashes.

"That's something you can't replace. At least they can't steal my memories," Young said.

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