After putting out a plea for the return of his mother’s stolen ashes, taken on Monday, Ballarat’s Nick Dalrymple had his wish answered.
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A good Samaritan spotted the urn containing the ashes dumped just a street over, recognising them from the article in The Courier.
They handed it into police, who returned the stolen item to Mr Dalrymple at around 7:30pm yesterday.
He says he was certainly happy to see them returned.
“I wasn’t expecting them to be returned so quickly,” Mr Dalrymple said.
He said the person returning the ashes wanted to remain anonymous, but “was not the person who stole them.”
He wants to say thank you, in the hopes they read this article.
“Thank you for actually returning them, for noticing the urn and picking it up.”
The urn was slightly damaged on the outside, but otherwise okay.
“It’s a brass urn, with a plastic coating on the outside and the paint’s peeled a bit,” Mr Dalrymple said. “I don’t think [the thief] dumped it carefully.”
A watch given to him by his late mother was also stolen, but is yet to be returned. He does not expect to get it back.
The “opportunistic” theft took place on Monday afternoon, with the thief climbing over the back fence while no one was home.
He believes the ashes were stolen as the urn was in a blue velvet box similar to his watch, so may have been mistaken for jewellery.