Fort Worth Police said a 40-year-old woman was arrested on May 4, nearly two years after she allegedly threw the ashes of her boyfriend’s mother into Lake Worth.
According to Fort Worth Police Department, officers arrested 40-year-old Augustine Gladney after her boyfriend, 38-year-old Ernest Smith, informed authorities that he discovered his mother’s urn was missing when he returned home on June 3, 2020, at about 7 p.m.
Smith told officers that he and Gladney had been dating but were not on good terms.
He said he overheard Gladney tell her daughter over the phone that she had thrown the urn into the lake. Smith had been unable to reach Gladney until almost midnight that day. Per NBC 5 News, Gladney’s daughter was at the couple’s home at the time of the incident.
Gladney texted her boyfriend around four hours after he overheard her conversation. She allegedly admitted that she had thrown the green urn with butterfly patterns containing his mother’s ashes into Lake Worth, according to the Fort Worth Police Department.
Fort Worth Police noted that an officer told Smith to keep Gladney’s text as evidence.
Gladney was arrested and charged with the abuse of a corpse on May 4.
According to Fort Worth Police, Gladney is now facing a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a fine of up to $4,000 if convicted of the Class A misdemeanor charge. It is unclear if the 40-year-old has a legal representative.