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An Auckland woman is heartbroken after returning home yesterday to find thieves had broken into her Epsom home and stolen a silver trinket box containing the ashes of her stillborn twins.
"I will literally do anything to get them home to me...I'm hoping this post will be shared and someone will find it in their hearts to return my babies to me," said Fiona Grove on the Remuera Community Facebook page.
"They could put the box in my letterbox. Or leave it by the front door they so kindly smashed in."
This morning, Grove told the Herald she kept the ashes of the babies, named Sheryl and Anne, in a little satin pouch inside the small, heart-shaped trinket box.
The box was kept on a tallboy in her bedroom and could have been mistaken for a jewellery box, she said.
The twins died at 19 weeks gestation only months after she got married in 1998. The tragedy was picked up during a routine ultrasound which found no heartbeat in either of the babies.
Grove has since had two daughters, aged 17 and 15.
The pharmacist left for work at 9am yesterday and her partner got home just before 6.30pm to find thieves had used a crowbar to force open a lock and deadlock on the front door of the flat in St Andrews Rd.
They stole a pair of headphones, her passport, a fit bit watch and some jewellery, including a silver swimming medal won by her great-grandfather.
"The medal was hugely important and sentimental to me, but I don't really care, it's just stuff," said Groves, whose sole focus is the return of her babies' ashes.
"I don't care about anything else. I just want the trinket box back."
The burglary was reported to the police.