'Keep the car': Woman hopes thieves return mother's ashes from back seat of stolen vehicle
A woman is calling on Montrealers to keep their eyes peeled for her stolen vehicle. She says she does not care about the car; it’s her mother’s ashes, which were sitting in the back seat, that she wants back.
Catherine Lewis, a Montreal-born Torontonian, says she and her sister drove to Montreal to bury her mother’s ashes next to their father at the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery on Mount Royal.
On Tuesday night, they parked in front of a West Island hotel and left the urn in the backseat.
“Laughingly, we said we’d leave the ashes in the car ... because it’s not going to make a difference,” she said.
“But when we came out to the car the next morning, to go to the cemetery, the car was gone,” she added. “It’s just unbelievable.”
She says police told her the car was stolen at around 3:40 a.m., and that it was likely parked on the side of the road somewhere.
Now, she’s pleading with anyone with information on its location to come forward before the vehicle is sold or shipped off.
“Hopefully [the thieves] will have a modicum of morality,” she said. “They wouldn’t have known that the ashes were back there.”
“Keep the car, you can have the car, we would just really appreciate having the ashes returned.”
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
The vehicle is a silver 2020 Toyota RAV4 with Ontario licence plate CDNP 041.
The ashes are in a golden, rectangular urn, inscribed with “Winifred Jane Dominik, 1928 – 2021.” It’s sitting inside a burgundy felt bag, along with the certificate of cremation and a death certificate.
Anyone who has the ashes in their possession can return them to the hotel where the vehicle was stolen from, or a local police station.
Lewis says police told her the RAV4 is a particularly popular car to steal.
“An investigation is underway in this case,” a police spokesperson told CTV Montreal. “It goes without saying that we encourage anyone who notices that their vehicle has been stolen to report it to the police.”
Police also said there have been significantly more vehicle thefts in Montreal this year.
In 2021, police recorded 3,820 thefts between Jan 1 to Aug.31. During that same period in 2022, there had been 6,190.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
'Anything to win': Trudeau says as Poilievre defends meeting protesters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
"It's a bit of a complicated pattern; we've got a lot going on," said Jennifer Smith of the Meteorological Service of Canada in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. "[As is] typical with weather, all of these things are related."
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Police tangle with students in Texas and California as wave of campus protest against Gaza war grows
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
'My stomach dropped': Winnipeg man speaks out after being criminally harassed following single online date
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.