Widow's heartbreak as pendant with husband's ashes is stolen

Sharon Waters (51) had the pendant made after husband John died in March 2013 after suffering a heart attack.

But raiders grabbed the irreplaceable jewellery during a burglary at Sharon’s home in Bailey Way, on the Sugar Way estate in Woodston on April 27.

The burglars also took an engagement ring set with three sapphire stones, a diamond cluster ring, an eternity ring with a full band of sapphires and diamonds, a gold ring with a distinctive plain piece of gold soldered into it, and John’s old mobile phone – containing personal messages they sent each other.

Sharon said: “My partner got home at 4.50pm to find the police outside the house. They said we had been burgled, so he phoned me and I came racing home.

“I went into the lounge, where the police were, and it did not look like anything had been touched.

“Then they said it was the bedroom that had been targeted, and I knew instantly what had been taken.

“I kept my wedding ring, my engagement ring and a pendant with my husband’s ashes in a heart shaped box there, and I knew straight away that is what would have been taken.

“I had taken the pendant off because I was worried about breaking or losing it. I used to put on the wedding ring every so often.

“They had also taken John’s old mobile phone. It had messages we used to send each other, and I would charge the phone up and look at them sometimes. They were like love letters really. I never thought about backing it up.

“They also went through old photographs, and tipped clothes every where.”

Sharon said she was ‘horrified’ when she discovered what had happened. She said: “I started to cry straight away, as I knew I would never get those things back.

“It was a horrific feeling. You will always have the memories in your head and your heart, but these are important things too.

“The insurance can pay back the monetary value, but it is the memories that go with the things that can never be replaced.

“If I could speak to the thieves, I would appeal to their good side – I think there is something good in everyone. The pendant is worthless to everyone else.”

John, a lorry driver, died at work in March 2013.

Sharon said “He went off to work, and I never saw him again.

“I had the pendant made specially, with a gold setting, and a long, black glass pendant, with John x on it.

“If I saw it again I would know it instantly.”