Arizona woman says she ordered keepsake urn from Amazon for her grandmother. But then she opens it: ‘Who are you and what are you?’

A Mesa, Arizona, family says they received an unexpected delivery while they were preparing to lay their grandmother to rest. The family says they ordered a keepsake urn online, only to discover that it apparently still held remains that did not belong to their loved one.

According to AZ Family, Dorothy Kuspis, who was known as “Nanny” to her granddaughter Ashleigh Wegner, died on May 27 at the age of 98. Wegner said her family had expected the loss, but she indicated that the reality of it was still difficult to process.

“She lived a good life,” Wegner told the outlet. “So it wasn’t a surprise, but it was kind of a, with anything, any loss, kind of a shock when it happened.” In the days that followed, the family reportedly began making arrangements, which included selecting an urn. Wegner said her mother and uncles chose an urn for Kuspis, and she indicated the family also set aside a small portion of cremated remains for close relatives.

A small brass keepsake that reportedly arrived with ashes inside

Wegner said she decided to buy a small keepsake urn shaped like a brass heart from Amazon. “It came within a couple days,” Wegner said. “When I opened it, it was just a little dusty.”

She said the situation then changed when she examined the urn more closely. “I unscrewed the back and that’s when I noticed it still had remains inside of it,” Wegner said. “And that was like, I have, who are you and what are you?”

Wegner said the urn appeared to be new, but that it was caked with ashes that did not belong to her grandmother. She described feeling unsettled by the discovery. “I was shocked,” Wegner said. “I was kind of grossed out. I was uncomfortable.” Cases of mishandled remains have surfaced before, including reports of families who received fake ashes after losing loved ones.

According to the report, Wegner said this was not the first time she had encountered cremated remains that she could not identify. “We’ve had a past similar situation,” she said. “So a few years back, me and my husband came across a box of ashes in an alleyway where we lived.”

Wegner said she and her husband turned those remains over to the sheriff’s department, which she indicated then located the family connected to them. She said the family did not want the remains returned. “They said they weren’t interested or for whatever reason, they just didn’t want the remains,” Wegner said. Stories of lost ashes can take strange turns, such as a man who lost his grandma’s ashes and replaced them with pepper.

Wegner said she and her husband then spread those ashes in the Arizona mountains. She indicated that the family now plans to do something similar with the ashes found inside the keepsake urn, this time near Flagstaff, because she said she does not want them to return to circulation.

“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,” Wegner said. Wegner also said she contacted Amazon and was told she would receive a refund. She added that she reached out to the third-party seller but did not receive a response.