Kieran Massey and his fiancée endured the unthinkable when their daughter was born still after just six months of pregnancy last year. Then, they faced the inexplicable.
Massey said his fiancée had checked into Wellstar Kennestone Hospital for treatment in January when a teddy bear containing their child’s ashes vanished from her hospital room. On Friday, authorities arrested a husband and wife who worked in the Cobb County hospital’s laundry sorting facility and accused them of stealing the bear, then disposing of the ashes at their Marietta home.
Despite his overwhelming grief, Massey, 22, said Thursday he’ll pray for the accused couple.
“I don’t think I’ll ever feel a sense of closure,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Massey and Carla Watson were excited to become parents, he said, but significant complications occurred during the pregnancy. They lost their daughter on Aug. 15.
“We had a stillbirth. When (our daughter) got cremated, we talked to the people at the burial place, and they put her inside a bear,” Massey told Channel 2 Action News.
When Watson, 19, went to Kennestone five months later for another procedure, she took the teddy bear with her for emotional support. But when she returned to her room one day after taking a shower, the bear was gone.
It was eventually found in a trash can by hospital staff the same day, but the urn was not inside.
More than two months later, Anilus and Rosnie Frederic were taken into custody. They are both facing charges of theft by taking and abandonment of a dead body.
Authorities were able to recover the urn, but Massey said the ashes were just dust at that point.
“Just knowing that we lost her and losing the ashes all in one is very painful,” Massey told Channel 2. “Why? Why would y’all do that?”
Massey said detectives told him the Frederics were identified relatively quickly but had moved from their last known address. It took several more weeks for police to locate them. Kennestone officials confirmed they began an immediate investigation and fired the employees.
According to their arrest warrants, the couple removed the urn from inside the bear and took it to their home. They then threw away the ashes in an “unknown manner,” the warrant states.
They were released from the Cobb jail Saturday on $8,470 bonds.
Massey, who is originally from Tennessee, said the hospital offered them some support after the theft. Their families also have rallied around them, and he said they were still hopeful for the future.
Asked if they planned to have more kids, Massey said, “Yes, most definitely.”
