Mystery remains about box once thought to hold ashes of body

When Marlene Richter walked into her office last week, she saw it sitting in the middle of her desk: a cardboard box with a label from a mortuary attached.

After a quick glance at the label, she thought she knew the rest of the story. It read: "Clara D. Penny, Died Oct. 13, 1996."

Someone -- she doesn't know who -- entered her office Thursday at Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada and left the plain cardboard box. She added that she didn't know Penny or her family.

Twice before over the past two years, a box of cremated remains has ended up on her desk in St. Vincent's Homeless Shelter, and she has had to search for surviving relatives. "My first thought was: Oh my, it has happened again. Where on Earth am I going to find the next of kin? ... This could go on for months," an obviously exasperated Richter said.

After several phone calls, a half-sister of the deceased was located in Jena, La.

"I just can't believe this," Alice Stapleton said of her sibling. "We were told her ashes were scattered on some mountain near Las Vegas. It never occurred to me that they could end up in a box in a homeless shelter."

Penny, a 69-year-old retiree, had lived in Las Vegas since 1983.

Stapleton said she had a nice family cemetery plot where the ashes could be buried.

Shortly after we got off the phone, Stapleton began calling relatives to tell of the discovery.

After being told of some relatives' beliefs that the ashes had been spread on the mountain, a jarring thought came to Richter: "Oh my, I haven't actually looked in the box."

When she did so, she discovered that "the box is full of pine cones. I never thought to look inside. It would be like peeking in the casket. It's just something you just don't do."

Calls were immediately made to Stapleton.

"Well, it's a good thing y'all didn't mail back that box. We might have ended up burying a box of pine cones in the family plot," the half-sister said.

The only mysteries remaining for Richter: Who left a box of pine cones on her desk -- and why.

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