A grieving widow is reportedly looking for answers after turning her late husband’s ashes into jewelry – and now she’s discovered they may not be his remains.
A friend of the bereaved woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told a British newspaper The Telegraph that the incident occurred after the husband was being cared for at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors, in Hull, England.
On Tuesday, Humberside Police confirmed they recovered the bodies of 35 deceased people from a funeral home between March 8 and 9 amid “reports of concern about storage and management processes”.
The man and woman were then “arrested on suspicion of preventing a lawful and decent burial, fraud by false representation and fraud by abuse of position,” police added in a statement, before confirming the pair had since been released on bail.
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Speaking with The Telegraphsaid a friend of the unnamed widow: “They paid a lot of money to have the ashes turned into crystal jewelry that his widow, daughter and granddaughter will wear in memory of him.” “But now they’ve discovered he wasn’t cremated and was in the freezer the whole time.”
“The widow is distraught,” continued the family friend – identified only as coming from the East Yorkshire town of Beverley. “The family thought they had his remains, and now they’re wondering, ‘If it’s not him, then who is it?’ ”
“They are now grieving again, they have lost that conclusion that a funeral gives you,” added the friend. “His widow has now been told by the police that she will have to go and identify her dead husband’s body – imagine that!”
Image shows Legacy Independent Funeral Directors branch in Hull.
PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty
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Another bereaved woman, named by the BBC as Billie-Jo Suffill, 33, from Hull, also claimed she “never received” her father Andrew’s ashes after he and her brother Dwane were cremated at a funeral home following their deaths in July 2022.
“It’s not human, it’s not normal,” Suffill told the BBC. “It’s not something you hear, not in Hull, not in our little town, it’s crazy.”
Humberside Police announced the ongoing investigation at a press conference on Tuesday.
“We continue to provide support to the families involved in this extremely difficult and painful time. This is a truly horrific incident and understandably they are distraught and have many questions and we are doing everything we can to give them the answers they desperately need,” said Deputy Chief Constable David Marshall.
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“While I understand that everyone will have questions about our enquiries, I must absolutely stress that we are at a critical stage and we must protect the ongoing investigation,” added Assistant Chief Constable Thom McLoughlin, who is leading the investigation. “Therefore, I cannot provide full details at this time.”
McLoughlin added that the deceased found at the funeral home has now “been transported with due respect to Hull Mortuary and formal identification procedures are now taking place”.
“As part of our extensive lines of inquiry, specialist forensic teams are in the process of conducting thorough and vigorous searches of various premises associated with the suspect,” McLoughlin added.
“As part of the wider investigation, there is also a quantity of what we believe to be human ashes and we are in the process of carefully removing this and moving it to the mortuary.”
Humberside Police did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for more information.
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Source: HIS Education