PLYMOUTH, Mass. — A 10-year-old Plymouth boy hopes to find the necklace containing his mother’s ashes lost while at soccer practice last week.
Connor Datri wears the precious heart-shaped locket engraved with his mom’s initials and fingerprint every day to feel close to his mother, Lynelle Leonard, three years after she died in a car crash.
“He wears it all the time, and he only takes it off when he showers,” Connor’s grandmother Melissa Moriarty told Boston 25 News Monday. “He feels the closeness with his mom, that she’s always going to be there… This is like the only thing that he really has of his mom.”
Connor said he suddenly realized the pendant had fallen off while on the soccer field beside West Elementary School. He and countless others searched for it but came up empty-handed.
“I was kind of like shocked that the necklace was on me, but the pendant wasn’t,” Connor said. “I kind of felt upset and mad at the same time.”
After Moriarty posted a picture of the necklace on Facebook, asking others to keep an eye out for the priceless possession, dozens didn’t hesitate to help, many complete strangers searching the fields with metal detectors in the pouring rain Saturday.
“Everyone that went out there, and with their metal detectors, it meant so much to me,” Moriarty said. “My heart goes out to every single one that went looking on that rainy day.”
“I felt happy about it,” Connor added, “and I thought someone was going to find it.”
But after another day of searching the pendant was still missing.
While Moriarty has more of her daughter’s ashes in an urn in her home, not knowing where the rest of them are is upsetting.
“My heart hurts, because I don’t know where she is,” Moriarty said. “She’s in an urn in my house. I haven’t buried her, because I want to make sure she’s safe. Her being in my house, I feel she’s safe… We’re missing a part of my daughter, because she is in that heart.”
Moriarty said she will likely file a police report for the missing property soon. She encourages anyone who finds the necklace to turn it in to Plymouth police.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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