Fayette County Sheriff’s investigators have arrested two suspects in a residential burglary in which an urn containing an infant’s ashes was taken, but the urn is still missing and may have been discarded by the thieves, authorities said.
The Sheriff’s Office is asking the public to be on the lookout for the small, heart-shaped black urn and its blue velvet box.
The urn contains the remains of Olivia Allen, who was born about a year and a half ago but lived only a few minutes. Fayetteville resident Brian Allen and his wife had kept the urn on a shelf in their bedroom closet in their home on Ga. 92 South.
On Jan. 22, burglars broke into the home while the Allens were at church and stole the urn, along with a Kindle Fire tablet computer, jewelry and other electronic items, authorities said. There were no witnesses to the crime.
Allen said he only cared about the urn.
"We've already lost her one time, now we've lost her again," Allen told Channel 2 Action News shortly after the burglary. "They could have taken everything in this house. It can all be replaced, but you can't replace that."
A break in the case came Feb. 7, when Fayette County investigators said they recovered the Kindle Fire from an apartment in Morrow. The man who had the Kindle said he worked at a convenience store in Riverdale where he had purchased the device.
Surveillance video from the store was shared with Atlanta TV news stations. The images were broadcast, and someone contacted authorities and identified the suspects.
Fayette investigators arrested Shomari Qutrell Davis, 17, on Feb. 16 and Jawan Rashad Powell, 20, on Feb. 17. Both suspects are from Clayton County. The two have each been charged with two counts of burglary.
They also each was charged with entering an auto, from a vehicle burglary at another Fayette County residence earlier Jan. 22, sheriff’s officials said.
Davis and Powell were turned over to Fayette County Jail after their arrests and have since bonded out. Meanwhile, the urn remains missing.
“We have certainly been looking. We have put in a lot of man hours looking for this,” Fayette Sheriff’s Investigator Brent Rowan told the AJC.
Asked if the suspects were cooperating with the search, Rowan said, "We are trying to communicate through their attorneys right now. That's part of the investigation."
Anyone who finds it or knows its whereabouts is asked to contact the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division, 770-716-4750.
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