"I cremated him, so that he could be right here with me," lamented a Georgia mother who says UPS lost her teen son's remains.
An inconsolable mother in Georgia says the cremated remains of her 15-year-old son have been lost by UPS.
Tangenika Lee said she sent a package containing the ashes of her boy, Deontray, and a few gifts, to her sister in Connecticut. But the package never arrived.
“If you ask me, it’s just like a repeating nightmare,” Lee told WSB-TV in Atlanta. “I cremated him because I had not seen him in seven whole years. So, I cremated him, so that he could be right here with me, and we could travel together and do things together. And he ain’t here.”
Her son died of a fentanyl overdose, she said.
Lee said her sister was going to create a custom urn for Deontray's ashes. She said she sent that package via UPS in early January, and it was supposed to arrive on Jan. 10.
When it didn't, Lee said she contacted police and returned to the UPS store where she dispatched the parcel.
Store employees told her they had reviewed surveillance video from inside the building, and they showed the package leaving the store, Lee said. Somewhere on its way to Connecticut, the parcel went missing, she said she was informed.
The mother said she received a $135 compensation check from the delivery service, but she won't cash it.
"I don’t want no $135 check," the mother posted on her Facebook page. "I want my son's ashes back."
In a statement, UPS said the package's contents were described incorrectly when the parcel was mailed.
"We found the content of the package was declared by the customer as ‘clothes,’" the statement said. "UPS does not accept shipments of human remains. We extend our deepest sympathy to the family and our heartfelt thoughts are with them during this time. Unfortunately, the package was lost.”
According to the National Funeral Director Association's website, "The United States Postal Service (USPS) offers the only legal method of shipping cremated remains domestically or internationally."
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