DOCUMENT: Bizarre, Crime

Cops: Man Flushed Kin's Cremated Remains

Cops: Dispute with mother prompted toilet desecration

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Remains Flushed

APRIL 30--After his mother kicked him out of her Pennsylvania residence, a 33-year-old man flushed his grandparents’ ashes down the home's toilet, a bizarre retaliatory move for which he is facing criminal charges.

According to a court complaint, Thomas Porter Wells moved into his mother’s Pittsburgh-area home late last year, but his stay was cut short due to his drinking and alleged use of marijuana.

Police charge that before Wells departed the McKeesport home, he went into his mother Denise’s bedroom and retrieved the cremated remains of her mother and father. Wells allegedly then flushed the ashes down a toilet.

The remains, investigators noted, were stored "in a box in her bedroom set up with a memorial" for her late parents, Lillian and Richard.

Porter, 52, told cops that Wells denied disposing of the ashes during a phone conversation. However, in a subsequent text message, Wells told his mother that he would someday flush her remains down the toilet, as first reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Specifically, Wells texted, "Yup and soon as you die you'll be going in the same spot where you belong down the shitter you bitch," the complaint states.

Wells was arraigned yesterday for criminal mischief and two counts of abusing a corpse. Free on a nonmonetary bond, Wells is scheduled for a May 13 preliminary hearing in District Court. (1 page)