Ashes among missing items after Hope Mills burglary

"We were very much alike," she said. "She was my best friend."

Louise de la Vega died at 81 of breast cancer, it hit Littler especially hard.

She suffered a second loss last week, when someone broke into her grandmother's house and stole, among other things, the urn which held her ashes.

"Somebody came and they took my grandma all over again," Littler said.

The family told Hope Mills police that someone broke in the house between Thursday night and Friday morning. Some jewelry and DVDs are also missing.

"I can't understand why somebody would come into somebody else's house and take something that doesn't belong to them, let alone take ashes from somebody who died," Littler said.

"She doesn't mean anything to them, but she means everything to us, and we want them back."

De la Vega's family was planning to sell her house and send her ashes to New York.

"She wanted to be buried with her parents, my grandparents," said de la Vega's daughter, Yolanda Luna.

Now, that plan is on hold until the ashes are returned.

"All we want are the ashes back," Littler said. "I don't care what else they took, nothing else is of importance, just my grandma."

The family is offering a reward for information that leads to the safe return of the urn.