Man pleads guilty to stealing ashes of baby from Elmhurst home
A man who stole an urn containing the ashes of a baby from an Elmhurst house was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison.
Glenn Addison, 68, of the 500 block of East 149th Street in Harvey, pleaded guilty Aug. 18 to one count of residential burglary, which is a Class 1 felony punishable by probation to 15 years in prison. But because of his criminal history, including a 1974 murder conviction, he was eligible for a sentence of six to 30 years in prison.
Addison was arrested Dec. 17, 2019, and accused of burglarizing the house on Melrose Street in Elmhurst eight days earlier. The victims told police a coin collection and an urn containing the ashes of their infant son were stolen.
The ashes were returned to the victims by order of the judge at Addison's bond hearing a few days later.
On Tuesday, DuPage County State's Attorney Claudia Fantauzzo read a statement written by one of the baby's parents. "He traipsed through our house and stole our most precious item," the person wrote. When they saw the ashes were gone from a memorial shrine set up on a dresser, "I fell to the floor. I never understood shock until I realized what was missing," the person wrote. The statement said the theft re-traumatized the parents, whose son had died at 10 days of a congenital birth defect.
Addison will have to serve at least 50 percent of the sentence before becoming eligible for parole. He received credit for time spent in the DuPage County jail since his arrest.
At the time of the theft, Addison was on parole for a 2014 burglary.
"Mr. Addison's criminal behavior has once again landed him behind bars as he now finds himself looking at a 15-year sentence," DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin said in a news release. "The fact that Mr. Addison stole an urn containing the ashes of a deceased infant, which offered absolutely no monetary value to him, demonstrates the utter callousness of his actions and his complete disregard for the sanctity of human life."