'She was like my second mom': Woman's pain after thief steals car with grandmother's ashes inside... and police do nothing

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Updated: 10:23 EST, 4 May 2011

They were so close she called her a 'second mom', and so it was only right for Ebony Simpson to take her grandmother's ashes back home to Georgia after the funeral.

But  the 28-year-old has been left grief-stricken after a thief stole her car from a supermarket parking lot - not realising her grandmother's urn was in the trunk.

More than a week later police have still not assigned a detective to the case, so a frustrated Miss Simpson is urging whoever took the car to return the ashes.

Plea: Ebony Simpson, 28, wants whoever stole her car to come forward and return her grandmother's ashes, which were in the trunk

She told WSBTV: 'Right now, my hopes are really slim. I understand that you committed a crime. I just hope that someone will have a heart.'

She said: ''My grandmother was like my second mom. There is stuff that I told her before I told my mom.'

The theft happened on April 23, when Miss Simpson was driving back from Tennessee after the memorial service for her grandmother, 93-year-old Ernestine Simpson.

She stopped for just five minutes at a Kroger in Norcoss to buy some dinner, and briefly left her shopping cart unattended as she turned to pick up some tacos, taking her wallet but leaving her keys.

Grief: Miss Simpson was taking the remains of her grandmother, 93-year-old Ernestine, back to Georgia after her funeral in Tennessee

When she got to the cash register she realised the keys were missing. She ran outside, but when she got to the parking lot her black Nissan Micra had disappeared too.

She told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 'My grandmother's ashes were in an urn in a box. I can replace everything else. I cannot replace my grandmother's ashes.'

She had been entrusted with the ashes because the two were so close. She said: 'I was going to put them on a mantel until I could decide what to do. I was going to keep them until I felt ready to let them go.'

Miss Simpson immediately reported the theft to Gwinnett County Police and she had nothing but praise for the responding officer, who took her back to her apartment and searched it to make sure the thief hadn't been inside.

Theft: Miss Simpson had only stopped for five minutes to pick up some tacos at this Kroger supermarket in Norcross when the thief struck

But more than a week later the car has still not been found, and no arrests have been made. Corporal Jake Smith told the Journal-Constitution it was listed as stolen, but the case had not yet been assigned to a detective.

They receive at least a hundred reports of car theft each month, and last year 1,503 vehicles were stolen.

Now Miss Simpson is pleading with whoever mistakenly took the ashes to return them. She described the urn as dark wood with a pointed lid.

She said: 'I would just like them to imagine if your child or your grandmother was in a car and somebody stole it and you couldn't do anything about it.'