Teens Steal 'Cocaine,' End Up Tasting Grandfather's Ashes

"But you know, they were kids and, I guess, just stupid," the theft victim, Debora Matthews, said

Photo: St. Charles County Police Department

Talk about keeping it in the family.

St. Peters, Missouri, 17-year-old Devin Gesell carried out a robbery with two unnamed, minor accomplices – ages 15 and 16 – in November.

In his confession, Gesell describes acting as a lookout while his accomplices broke into Debora Matthews’s home and stole $825 in cash and more than $2,000 in various other items.

Among their booty was, in a box, Matthews’s father’s ashes – which the thieves mistook for cocaine and discarded on the highway after tasting them and realizing their mistake.

But there’s another complicating factor: Matthews says the minors are related to her.

“I’m very upset because of the minors. I mean, [they] were his grandsons,” Matthews told KMOV.com. “They did that to their grandfather. They didn’t even realize it was their grandfather’s ashes.

“I just couldn’t believe that they would take the ashes,” she said. “But you know, they were kids, and, I guess, just stupid.”

The Smoking Gun reports that this isn’t the first instance of ashes being mistaken for a controlled substance.

In 2011, five Florida teens mistook the cremated remains of a man and two dogs for either cocaine or heroin and snorted some of the substance before realizing their mistake.