PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – A South Florida home was burglarized this week and the thieves got away with a woman’s safe, along with a memorial lockbox that had her late husband’s ashes inside.
Maria Araya said the intruders cut a slit in her back porch screen and smashed in a small bathroom window.
It happened on Monday sometime between 10 a.m. and noon at her Pembroke Pines home located near Pines Boulevard and Southwest 68th Avenue.
“All the time, I think what happened,” she said. “Why did this happen to me?”
She came home to hear her alarm going off and found her front door partially open. Police officers quickly arrived afterward.
Not only did the crook or crooks take a small safe from her bedroom, but also something much more valuable: her husband’s ashes, which were in a memorial lockbox right next to that safe.
“It’s something very special to me because he is my forever love,” Araya said. “It reminds me he is still with me. That’s why I keep him here and I talk to him every day.”
It’s been nine years since she lost her husband, Juan Araya, who died from complications from leukemia.
She keeps their wedding date underneath the memorial lockbox.
Araya is concerned because she said two weeks ago, she had hurricane-impact windows installed at her home.
The crook not only hit an older window in the back of her home, but it appeared they knew exactly where the safe was — and the lockbox right next to it.
The memorial box is wooden and coffee-colored.
It has musical notes engraved on the top of it, along with her husband’s name and date of birth (12/12/1940) and a small gold key lock. She even had a picture taped to the top of the box.
As for the safe, she tells the crooks it’s not important: keep it.
“I don’t care about the money, I only want my husband’s ashes back,” she said. “I had them here because I told my kids to bury me with his ashes when the time comes.”