95-year-old woman's remains find home in Australia

Ninety-five-year-old Margaret Prosser's remains had been languishing on the dusty shelves of the Kane County coroner's office since 2007.

Stored there because she had no known next of kin.

But now, thanks to the efforts of Kane County Coroner Rob Russell to clear those shelves of 47 unclaimed cremated remains, she has been united with her relatives in New South Wales, Australia.

Russell said he began his quest to find homes for the 47 remains in 2013.

"When I took over, there were 47 of them," Russell said. "So I made it my mission. The first thing that I was going to do was get them out of there - put them somewhere where it makes more sense, instead of a dusty shelf."

Russell is not sure why the shelves were filled with remains.

"For some reason, here in Kane County, it was never dealt with," he said.

He reread case files, performed Internet searches and floated a news release with the names of the deceased.

The latter proved key in Prosser's case - The Associated Press picked up the story, which led someone to contact one of Prosser's long lost cousins, Joan Telfer.

Telfer, of New South Wales, recognized the name of a cousin who had moved to America and emailed Russell to confirm her suspicions.

After several emails and a check of the lineage, a link between Telfer and Prosser was confirmed.

"She believed that this was somebody that was a relative of hers, and she (wanted) to give her a proper burial," Russell said. "But the first thing I did was type her back and say that's excellent. We do too, but we had to confirm lineage. Once we did that, it was just a matter of shipping her to Australia."

Russell said Telfer sent birth certificates and marriage certificates, among other things, to establish the connection.

Arrangements were then made for Prosser to be reunited with her next of kin.

On Aug. 6, Telfer sent Russell an email announcing that Prosser had been laid to rest next to her deceased aunt and uncle.

Telfer wrote, "I feel very proud to be able to have done this. Thank you for making this possible."

"This one was really cool," Russell said. "I had no idea. I'm thinking, 'These people that are here are all local.' But when you get an email from New South Wales, Australia, it's kind of a shock, but I sure am glad I got it."

To date, seven of the 47 have been reunited with family members.

Russell said he feels blessed to be part of the process.

"A good evaluator of a society is how well that society treats and values its deceased," he said. "The message here is that we highly value them and will do what is necessary to respect them properly."