A Montreal woman is hoping the thief who stole her father's ashes will return them promptly.
Leane Stewart had left the ashes in a messenger bag in her car last week.
She parked the car in her garage late and closed the door - or so she thought.
Stewart woke up the next morning and found her garage door was open.
"When I came downstairs I could actually hear the birds singing, which I thought, that's odd, why would I hear the birds so clearly?" said Stewart.
"When I walked by my car I noticed that my purse was gone."
Someone had entered the garage overnight and taken the mauve messenger bag that contained an e-reader, her agenda, and a bag with her father's remains.
"My father's hospital card was in there and his chemo card. I was still holding onto that, his ashes in a little bag and his Madonna because my father felt an affiliation with the Madonna," said Stewart.
That icon of the Virgin Mary was on Sterling Stewart's chest when he died in February, one year after being diagnosed with cancer.
"I stayed with him, I literally slept with him in the hospital with him," she said.
After her father died she scattered his ashes in the ocean, but kept some with her as a memento.
"It was just the only tangible things I had left of my dad so I just carried it with me all the time," said Stewart.
She now hopes the thief will return the ashes -- she doesn't care about the other items taken.
"Toss it back on my balcony, I don't care, bring it to the police station. No questions asked."
