Delta County family victim of truck theft with son’s ashes inside

DELTA, Colo. (KKCO) - The Navarro family made the trip from Delta County to St. Michaels, Ariz., to spread the ashes of their newborn, Sawyer, who passed away at only 51-days-old.

Sawyer was diagnosed with a rare condition of Heterotaxy Syndrome, a birth defect that involves the heart and other organs to fail.

“The doctors pretty much told us they were out of options for him. So, we ended up having to take him off the ventilator and off of his life support with the amount of medications they had to keep his heart functioning somewhat normally,” said Sierra Navarro, Sawyer’s mother.

He passed on Dec. 23, 2021. Sierra says the following day, they picked out an urn and had him cremated, “And you know, just last Tuesday down to Arizona, and his ashes were in our truck, and that’s just kind of when all the drama happened.”

The family ended up staying at a hotel in St. Michaels, and they were preparing to leave the following morning to spread Sawyer’s ashes. AJ Navarro, Sawyer’s father, went out to start the truck and went back inside momentarily to grab his bag, “And all of a sudden, I heard my engine rev really high. I thought something was going on with the truck.”

So, AJ sprinted outside, “And I noticed someone was in the front seat of my truck and I was confused there for a second. I tried to get them to get out.”

Surveillance video from a business behind the hotel shows two suspects hoping inside the truck and AJ running outside and punching the window. Then AJ can be seen jumping in the truck’s bed, trying to retrieve tools, but that’s when the truck gains traction.

“All I was thinking right then and there: ‘You can have the truck. I just want my son.’ The urn was in there,” said AJ.

He tried breaking the back window with a tool but then decided it was best to jump out of the truck. He suffered a few bruises and cuts, “I just had this feeling that, ‘Okay, my wife is still at the hotel my daughter is still at the hotel,’ " stated AJ.

Sierra was back in the hotel room with the authorities on the phone. She describes feeling sick to her stomach, “Because you don’t want your baby to be with people like that. Even if it’s just ashes, you just don’t want that. He already went through so much.”

And later that afternoon, when they were making their way back to Colorado. “They contacted us at 6:30 in the evening. They called and said, ‘Hey, we might’ve located your vehicle,’ “said AJ.

The family was received the urn on Jan. 26. They plan to head back to Arizona to spread his ashes on AJ’s mother’s grave.

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