Stolen teddy bear holds dead daughter’s ashes, mom says
The teddy bear looks like any other. But not to La’Quinta McKinney — because it holds the ashes of her daughter, La’Vea.
The child died in 2016 at just 2-months-old of what doctors determined was sudden infant death syndrome, according to McKinney.
“All I want is my baby back,” an emotional McKinney posted on Facebook after discovering that, while trying to move from her Hollywood apartment, someone made off with a bunch of her belongings — including the teddy bear.
The theft happened Monday, McKinney explains in her posting, as she and her young children were in the process of moving from their three-bedroom apartment. “After my daughter and I took everything out of the house, we realized that it couldn’t fit in my truck,” McKinney wrote.
They left to rent a UHaul truck and upon returning discovered that someone helped themselves to some of the items that were outside — clothes, furniture and the teddy bear that held La’Vea’s ashes.
The bear was wearing fluffy, white dress.
“They just ripped through my stuff like it was
atheirs,” McKinney WPLG-Ch. 10.
Hollywood police are investigating the theft that happened in front of McKinney’s apartment on the 300 block of N. 61st Terrace, the station reported.
McKinney, 33, a Broward school teacher, urged her Facebook friends to share her posting in the hopes of getting the teddy bear back.
“The bear is more than a bear,” she told WFOR-Ch. 4. “She’s my daughter. My daughter’s remains is in that.”
McKinney is not interested in pursuing charges and just wants whoever has the bear to return it to the Hollywood Police Department, she told the station. told