She took her dad’s ashes to her wedding and someone stole them from her truck
It was supposed to be the happiest day of her life, and she carried her father’s ashes along as she was married at Jones Park on New Year’s Day.
The inch-and-a-half, black and gold urn with his ashes, along with their wedding vows, were tucked inside her purse, Jen Mullaney Jones said. She and groom Daniel Jones stopped at the Veterans of Foreign Wars building on Dedeaux Road in Gulfport, where she’s worked for 10 years, for a wedding toast.
Her happiest day was ruined quickly, she said.
Sometime between 3:30 and 6 p.m., the couple’s pickup truck was broken into and the purse with the ashes inside disappeared.
“I’m absolutely gutted right now,” she said Saturday.
The police came to the scene and she turned to Facebook in hopes of getting to the person who took the black and gray Dooney and Burke purse. She’s asked them to drop it off at the VFW at 15206 Dedeaux Road.
“They can keep the money. I don’t care about the money,” she said, although every penny she had was in the purse.
It’s even worse that her purse was taken at the VFW, she said. Her father, Michael Scott Rordam, died in September and was a veteran.
“That’s a sacred place,” she said of the VFW. Even the veterans who were there Friday night went out with flashlights searching for the purse.
They do have a lead. Jones said her brother-in-law and nephew noticed a blue-gray Pontiac G6 with front-end damage parked outside the VFW for awhile when they were inside.
“Not a single patron comes in here who drives that kind of car,” she said.
She’s hoping someone may see the purse or the urn or know what happened to them so they can be returned.
Other cars in the parking lot had open windows, but only her purse was stolen, Jones said.
“2021 was supposed to be better,” she said. “This community has to come together to stop this from happening.”
This story was originally published January 2, 2021 at 2:09 PM.
