Family order urn for gran’s ashes on Amazon – but are left shaken by what’s inside

When grandmother Dorothy Kuspis died aged 98, her grieving family ordered a heart-shaped keepsake urn for her ashes from Amazon – but were shocked when they looked inside the item

Following the cremation of a loved one, it’s quite common for grieving families to keep their ashes in an urn at home. Many find solace in the notion that their nearest and dearest remains somehow close to them.

When Dorothy Kuspis passed away last month at the grand age of 98, her granddaughter Ashleigh Wegner decided to do precisely that. Ashleigh said her mother and uncles selected an urn for “Nanny”, as she affectionately called her, and ordered a heart-shaped keepsake urn, available on Amazon via a third-party seller.

“It came within a couple days,” Ashleigh told AZ Family, noting that it had evidently been sitting in storage for some time. “When I opened it, it was just a little dusty.”

However, she then discovered something far more distressing than a bit of household dust.

“I unscrewed the back and that’s when I noticed it still had remains inside of it,” she said. “And that was like… ‘Who are you and what are you?'”

Despite being sold as brand new, the heart-shaped urn appeared to have been previously used on at least one occasion.

“I was shocked. I was kind of grossed out. I was uncomfortable,” Ashleigh said.

She wasted no time in contacting Amazon, along with the third-party seller who had actually listed the urn for sale.

Ashleigh was adamant that simply returning the item wasn’t good enough: “I didn’t want it to end up on the warehouse shelf again and have somebody else make a purchase and have it accidentally get shipped to someone else in a moment like this,” she explained. Amazon swiftly responded, confirming she would receive a full refund.

While Ashleigh is yet to hear from the third-party seller, she has already been sent a replacement urn.

“Just as I expected,” she said.

Her grandmother’s remains are now safely housed in the new urn, with the exception of a small portion of cremated remains kept aside for close family members.

“She lived a good life,” Ashleigh said. “So it wasn’t a surprise, but it was kind of a – with anything, any loss – kind of a shock when it happened.”

Strangely enough, this isn’t the first time Ashleigh has had an unexpected encounter with someone’s ashes.

“We’ve had a similar situation in the past,” she revealed. “A few years back, me and my husband came across a box of ashes in an alleyway where we lived.”

Following her startling find, Ashleigh contacted the local police, who managed to track down those responsible for abandoning the ashes. Sadly, they had no desire to reclaim them.

“They said they weren’t interested or, for whatever reason, they just didn’t want the remains,” Ashleigh recalled.

As a result, Ashleigh and her husband chose to scatter those ashes across the Arizona mountains near their home. They intend to do much the same with the mystery ashes discovered inside the keepsake urn, as she is determined they won’t end up on another unsuspecting person’s doorstep.

Amazon was approached for comment in relation to this story, but has yet to respond.