DAPHNE, Ala. — Police said that they have identified the owner of a small box that washed up on the shore of an Alabama beach containing a child’s remains and keepsakes.
Alan Nabors was fishing on Sunday afternoon at May Day Park when he saw a blue box that had washed up on the sand, he told WKRG. Nabors brought the box to the police.
Inside the box, police found an urn, a baby blanket, mittens, a clay hand and footprints and a bracelet from a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, a police spokesperson told WPMI. Police said in the urn are what are believed to be the ashes of a baby boy.
“It’s not every day you find a tackle box that has got a baby in it,” Nabors told WKRG. “I hope the parents were found and they can be reconnected.”
Daphne police told WALA that after news about the box spread on social media on Monday, officers received a call putting them in touch with the family. Investigators said that the child’s mother took the box to the park with the intention of doing a burial at sea, but the box later drifted back to shore.
“Very emotional,” Daphne police Sgt. Jason Vannoy told WALA. “We had an extended conversation on the phone this morning and everything makes sense to us, so there’s certainly no mystery there. It is unfortunately a very emotional situation for that family.”
Vannoy told WPMI that the child had been stillborn. The police department said it would hold on to the box until the family decides what they would like to do with it.
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