The property room in a sheriff’s office normally holds boxes of evidence.
But in Frederick County, Virginia, it’s also where the ashes of more than a dozen people are kept. The cremains have gone unclaimed after their deaths, some of them for more than a decade.
It’s something that’s always troubled Sheriff Lenny Millholland.
"They were at one point a human being, somebody that was loved at some point in time in their life and I have them sitting in a property room, and I don’t like it," Millholland said.
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For years, he’s made attempts to track down relatives and friends of the unclaimed.
Each Christmas or Thanksgiving Millholland calls in a pastor to say a blessing.
This Christmas, Pastor Brandan Thomas, who also heads the local homeless shelter, said the blessing. The boxes holding the cremains were decorated for the occasion with Christmas bows.
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"My goal in the moment was to bring dignity to these individuals," Thomas said. "Knowing these individuals have passed away, if nothing else, their name was said out loud, and, again, it was a honor just to get to be part of that moment."
As Thomas read the names, he was surprised to see that he'd known three of the people through his work with the local mission.
A writer with The Winchester Star was also at the Christmas blessing, and published the names associated with the unclaimed ashes.
Within days, Thomas got a call: The former mission director made arrangements with her church to inter three sets of remains in nearby Old Salem Cemetery.
"These were individuals who mattered. They had names, they had faces, they had dreams, accomplishments and to know there is a place one could go to remember their name, to remember the place they held on this earth, I think there is a lot of importance in that," Thomas said.
The article from the Winchester Star also helped a woman in California learn what had happened to her uncle, Antonio Bucolay.
Bucolay had faithfully phoned her each holiday and texted to keep in touch. But when the calls stopped this Christmas, she searched online and found the article about the cremains.
"He is a Korean War veteran, a purple heart recipient and I had him sitting in a evidence room, but now I have found the family so we’ll be able to reunite them," Millholland said.
The sheriff has arranged for Bucolay, with his niece’s blessing, to be buried in Culpeper National Cemetery.
A few years ago, the sheriff even delivered a loved one to a family he tracked down in Virginia Beach.
"It gives you a warm feeling and it puts tears in their eyes when they get them. I feel at the end of the day that I’ve done my job," he said.
As of Monday, two more families were connected with the remains of their loved ones. There are still 16 people who haven't been claimed.
Below are their names and the known dates they died:
- Richard Allen
- Linda Anderson
- Jimmy Brown, Jan. 31, 2013
- Melvin Cox, July 29, 2011
- Linda Coxon, Aug. 10, 2018
- Earl Gwynn, April 22, 2020
- Richard Highland, Feb. 21, 2020
- Dorothy Jackson, Oct. 6, 2019
- Dale Lewis, March 1, 2020
- Barron Long
- Daniel Berkeley Merchant, Sept. 7, 2022
- Fay Taylor, Nov. 9, 2013
- John Wahanquist
- Bryant White
- Michael Williamson, June 24, 2012
- Jane Doe (unidentified)
