Edmond Woman Finds Human Ashes At Oklahoma City Metro Thrift Store

A Missouri woman is able to be with the remains of their loved one again after a woman from Edmond found their ashes in a vase at a thrift store.

Edmond resident Avi Turner said never imagined stumbling across human remains at an Edmond thrift store. 

"It was crazy," Turner said. “It feel like there is someone sitting next to me."

After finding the vase, Turner said she bought it for only $6, before discovering it was an urn.

Turner said she knew these weren’t just ashes, but a person who was loved and whose family probably wanted to find them.

Using social media, Turner was able to get in contact with the urn's owner, who lived hundreds of miles away.

The ashes are what remains of Joe Stricklin, who lived in Guthrie. Stricklin's friend, Leslie Chiles, said she was surprised to hear from Turner about the urn.

Stricklin passed died in 2011, but Chiles said Stricklin's son gave her the urn containing his ashes.

“That’s the only reason I knew it was mine, because of that vase," Chiles said.

Chiles said the ashes were taken from her home just a year after Joe died, and she hadn't seen the urn in 11 years.

“I'm happy we were able to find who he belongs to," Turner said. "He deserves to go home to the people that loved him."

In the decade since losing Joe, Leslie moved from Guthrie to Missouri, but within the next few weeks, a mutual friend plans to pick up the urn from Edmond and make the trip up to Missouri to return Joe Stricklin.