Holding back the tears, Chris Laware, a U.S. Marine who served 8 years in Afghanistan is making a plea to the burglar who broke into his Boca Raton home.
"I've spent the majority of my life defending our country overseas, so if you're a patriot, maybe you want to bring this Marine's mom's ashes back to him," said Chris Laware.
Laware's mom died three years ago. Her ashes are with his father's in New Hampshire, but Laware kept a part of his mom Caroline close to him. He stored part of her ashes in a tin container inside a Rolex box he kept in a drawer.
"It's that little piece of somebody you know. My mom and I were best friends," said Laware. "It [the box] had a Rolex emblem on the top, so they thought they got a watch. I saw that box was gone. I mean my heart just sank."
Laware left for work around 7 a.m. He returned home around noon for lunch. He knew something was wrong when he opened his garage.
"The pick-up truck door was open and there was a bunch of stuff from inside of the truck all over the ground. And then I'm like Oh my God, the house," he said.
He walked around the back of the house and saw his back screen door was cut, that's how the thief got in. Laware's kitchen cabinets were open. His rooms ransacked. His laptop and tablet were gone, but none of that matters to him.
"I just kept a little bit of my mom's ashes so that when I pass away, my brother passes away, that we can put a little bit of her ashes with our ashes," said Laware.
He's hoping the thief will return his mother's ashes.
"Drop them off at a TV station, a fire station, that's fine," he said. "It doesn't mean anything to them. Don't throw them away, they're priceless to me."