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Thieves steal woman's 400-pound safe with husband's ashes inside

By David Ham
Nov 15, 2014

Deirdre Thomason says she's still trying to recover from losing her husband suddenly two years ago. Now thieves have stolen his ashes.

"It was like a punch in the gut. You try to get up, try to keep going and move forward, and then you get slammed again," said Thomason.

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Last month, she and her daughter came home to their Marysville home on a Sunday afternoon and found a 400-pound safe that had been bolted to the cement in their garage gone.

"I am the caretaker of my husband's ashes, and I failed to do my job. That 's what I feel like," Thomason said.

The safe also contained precious family jewelry, including her engagement ring, and her husband's wedding ring.

She wanted to give it to their son when he gets married. "Now he doesn't have that ring; he won't have it. It was pretty devastating," Thomason said.

Snohomish County deputies say they are looking for a suspect but haven't been able to find her.

They have spoken to her over the phone. In a charging document, a detective wrote, "I told her that if she had any humanity in her , she would return the victim's deceased husband's ashes."

Detectives linked the suspect to the theft after a pawn shop owner in Everett found Thomason's husband's credit cards in a parking lot.

"As soon as I found out , it was really disturbing," said Stan Mykhaylenko, owner of the Cash Point pawn shop. 

He added, "I don't wish for anybody to go through that. Losing somebody and then you kind of get through that state and then you have to redo it all over again." 
Some of Thomason's jewelry was found at the Cash Point. She and her daughter are still looking for the rest of the jewelry. 
"Items that my mom gave me when she passed away and my father gave me when he passed away, and those items were in there and they can't be replicated," said Thomason.  
Thomason said in her spare time, she searches at area pawn shops for the rest of the jewelry. 
"They stole everything that we had," said Thomason, who estimated the valuables in the safe were worth about $40,000.

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David Ham

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