'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
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
Saskatchewan households will continue to receive carbon tax rebate: Trudeau
Households in Saskatchewan will continue to receive Canada Carbon Rebate payments, despite the province refusing to remit natural gas levies to the federal government, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
'We hoped for this day, but we were scared that it would not never ever come because it took so long.' That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.
Senate expenses climbed to $7.2 million in 2023, up nearly 30%
Senators in Canada claimed $7.2 million in expenses in 2023, a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous year.
Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko won't play in Game 2
The Vancouver Canucks will be without all-star goalie Thatcher Demko when they face the Nashville Predators in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series.
Pedestrian, baby injured after stroller struck and dragged by vehicle in Squamish, B.C.
Police say a baby and a pedestrian suffered non-life-threatening injuries after a vehicle struck a baby stroller and dragged it for two blocks before stopping in Squamish, B.C.