Woman finds man's ashes on the side of the road

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - A woman in northeast Houston made a chilling discovery -- someone's ashes, tossed on the side of the road. She spoke exclusively to FOX 26 in hopes of finding the living relatives.

Monique McKnight has lived in her neighborhood for 30 plus years. In that time she has seen all sorts of stuff illegally dumped on the side of the road near her home, but Tuesday was different. While she was walking her dog, she came across human remains.

"I'm seeing him sniffing and I'm saying 'okay what are you looking at?' And I walk over there and I find a box, and I'm saying 'OK what's this?' And I'm looking and the closer I got to it I realized it was someone's remains, still in the box, still in the bag, but on the side of the street," says McKnight.

She tells us the bend in South Finch Circle is a place for shady business -- there are no street lights, no houses, no one to witness when things are dumped and left behind. Neighbors have even found ATM's there.

"We've had a lot of issues with dumping and as you can tell it's a very wooded area and we've been actually trying to get it cleaned up and we're having the hardest time," McKnight says.

The ashes where carelessly tossed, coming out of its outer and inner boxes. Thankfully, the sealed bag was still intact. The name of the deceased was still visible. Along with the date of cremation, December 13, 2006, and the funeral home information.

McKnight contacted the Houston Police Department and is hoping to solve the mystery of how he ended up here on the side of the road.

"The remains get to the proper place, and if someone can reunite those ashes to the family and lay to rest. It needs to be laid to rest, that's a person," McKnight says.

We reached out to the Houston-based funeral home involved and they told us the cremains were released to the family back in January 2007. The funeral home has since picked up the ashes and returned them to the family.