Man's ashes stolen in Lindenhurst burglary

The silver chain with a fairy clutching an amethyst was a birthday present from her sister-in-law. The gold necklace with two miniature Mary Jane shoes holding the birthstones of her two daughters was a gift from her husband.

But of all the items taken when Janice Smith's Lindenhurst house was burglarized on Friday, she said, it is the wooden box she has kept on a bedroom end table for the past 10 years that she most wants returned.

That's because the maple box inlaid with scenes of silver-colored wolves contained the ashes of her husband, Raymond.

"It's of no value to anyone but us," she said of her and her two daughters. "For some people it might seem like very little but to us it is very important."

Smith, 57, had returned from picking up her daughter Morgan, 11, from school when she first noticed disheveled papers on top of a jewelry box. She dismissed it as the work of her two mischievous cats but when she went to put her earrings in another small box, it was nowhere to be found.

She immediately called her oldest daughter, Tiffany Monteleone, 33. Smith told her daughter that she believed someone had been in her house. That's when, out of the corner of her eye, Smith said she spotted the end table and realized the wooden box was gone.

"I yelled, 'Oh my God, they took your father!' " Smith said. "I almost hit the floor."

Smith filed a report with Suffolk police.

Raymond died 10 years ago at age 47 from a brain tumor. Smith kept her husband's ashes in a wooden box, she said, because Raymond was a contractor who loved working with wood and friends insisted he would not want his remains left in a metal urn. She said she chose the box, which measures about 14 x 10 x 3 inches, because the whole family loves wolves. But now Smith thinks the thief mistook the container for one of her jewelry boxes.

"It's upsetting, this is my father," Monteleone said. "Talk about something not able to be replaced."

When Morgan asked her mother, "What's going to happen to Daddy?" Smith said she explained the box was symbolic and that her father was their guardian angel. Smith said her husband of 24 years was looking out for them because they weren't home when the crime occurred.

Smith is putting up fliers asking that the box be returned. She has been Dumpster-diving, combing through neighborhood garbage bins hoping the thief realized what was in the box and tossed it.

"My brain is telling me it's not there but there's a part of my heart that is saying, 'I want to look,' " she said. "We just want the box back, no questions asked."