Storage owner reunites cremated remains with family

HOUSTON

It is a modern storage warehouse in north Harris County -- temporary housing for the overflow from homes. But when a renter emptied her storage unit two months ago, she left something -- or someone -- behind.

"She was like in the middle with trash and debris around," storage manager Jesus Muniz said.

Muniz retrieved kept it in a plastic bag, feeling it's personal to someone.

"Decided to keep her, bring her in, and started trying to locate her family members or relatives," he said.

Since the day he found the cremated remains, Muniz tried to track down the woman who left Gloria Jean Jones behind, but her numbers were disconnected. He even went to the apartment where the last renter had lived but nothing.

He had a name, birth and death date and a birth certificate of a relative of Gloria Jones also were left in the unit. But we ran a Public Data check and made a phone call to a Mrs. Lizzie Jones.

"Would they give 'em to her mama?"Jones asked us during a phone conversation.

"Yes, they'd give them to her mama," we replied.

It was the break for which Muniz had hoped. So he brought what he had been keeping to his car, and a long drive later in southeast Houston, an 80-year-old mother was reunited with her daughter.

The pictures matched. Jones says she had always asked her granddaughter about Gloria Jeans' ashes but never knew where they'd been taken. Now she does.

"My Jean, oh Lord, thank you Jesus. Thank you mister," Jones said.

Gloria Jean Jones is now home, thanks to a stranger who solved a mystery and brought peace to a mother.