New video in the search for stolen cremated remains

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - Take a close look at the person captured on surveillance video. The owner of Glendale Garden Café says it could be whoever stole the ashes of Mike Niles.

Those cremated remains of Niles, 66, of Ludington, Michigan, were in a package in the passenger seat of a classic Corvette. It was parked next to a white van in the parking lot of Glendale Garden Café at about 1:30 PM January 31, 2023.

Parker Hanson, owner of the Corvette, said he picked up the ashes of his friend from the post office in Waterville and drove to Toledo for an anti-crime meeting at the restaurant. Hanson left his doors unlocked and came out to discover his friend’s cremated remains were gone.

Video appears to show the person cross the parking lot and walk between the two vehicles. He emerges from between the Corvette and the white van after roughly 25 seconds and eventually gets onto a TARTA bus. That bus, according to the transit authority, is older and not fitted with a camera like the newer additions to the fleet.

Andy Cole, Communications Manager for the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority wrote to 13abc, “We’ve been able to check each vehicle that was on the road yesterday and not found anything. We continue to have safety personnel check video footage from the Transit Hub in case the person who took the package traveled down there. We have done and will continue to do everything that we can to locate the package.”

Hanson says he wants his friend’s remains back, no questions asked. The owners of Glendale Garden Café say whoever took them can return them to the restaurant.

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