Janet and Richard Keyes found each other in their later years.

Janet says those 15 years were a fairy tale, “It was like a constant honeymoon, we just fell in love and it was remarkable, just remarkable.”

She lost her soulmate a year ago to cancer.

“When we found out about it he passed away two days later,” she says.

But just as she seemed to be out of the darkest time in her life someone broke into her Cathedral City home in the Royal Palms mobile home community, on Tuesday when she and her granddaughter went to get ice cream.

“We were only gone like ten minutes and when we came back that whole sliding glass door was crashed through,” she says adding the thieves were methodical and only took items of value, “a case full of guns which was hidden in our closet and they took both of my jewelry armoires, just picked them up and carried them out.”

But as she looked through the home to see what else was stolen, she realized they took something priceless, a brown box with her husband’s name and his ashes, Having those gone just changed my life, just took my joy again,” she says through tears.

“It was just like losing him all over again and except for when I lost him the first time at least I had his ashes and now don’t have that it’s like the house is empty so I would really love to get those back,” she says adding this box of ashes with her husband’s name on them brought her great comfort, something those who have them can never appreciate, “at least I could have a conversation with those now I have nothing to have a conversation with and my dread is that he’s going to end up in a trash can or garbage can somewhere and they’re just going to toss it.”

So she’s pleading with whoever stole them to just bring them back, “Just bring it back and we’ll call it even, everything else doesn’t matter just those.”

If you have any information about these stolen items, in particular a brown box with the name Richard Keyes inscribed on the top, please contact Cathedral City Police Department (760) 770-0300 or contact our newsroom hotline (760) 340-1623.

You Ask. We Investigate. Widow Heartbroken after Husband’s Ashes Stolen