An urn with a Macon woman’s ashes washed up on a New Jersey beach. How did it get there?

An urn containing a Macon woman’s remains was found Friday after washing onto a beach in Ocean City, New Jersey. Now a man is searching for her family.

The remains of Paulette Eva Tricoche came ashore nearly 850 miles from her Middle Georgia home. When Ryan Leonard found the urn in New Jersey after rains from Hurricane Ian brought in other debris, his first move was searching online.

Leonard posted on Facebook Friday with a picture of the urn, inscribed “In Loving Memory Mom, Paulette Eva Rose.” The urn also featured birth and death dates showing that Paulette had lived from 1949 to 2021.

“Any chance someone local knows: Paulette Eva (Rose) Tricoche?” Leonard wrote in his post. “This washed up, and a quick Google search didn’t have much info… would love to be able to return to someone.”

Leonard also posted the woman’s obituary, which revealed that Tricoche died at a hospice in Macon. There was little other information on the webpage, however, so Leonard began the search for Tricoche’s family.

Tricoche was originally from Cape May Court House in New Jersey but was living in Macon when she died in 2021, according to an article from the Cherry Hill Courier Post. Leonard learned that after reaching out to the owner of the funeral home that cremated her.

Bradley B. Anderson of the Bradley B. Anderson Funeral Home in Reidsville, Georgia told Leonard that Tricoche’s remains had been shipped to a family member in New Jersey after she died.

“What it sounds like to me is, she tried to do a burial at sea and it washed up,” Anderson told the Courier Post.

That fits with the story Leonard told the Courier Post. His two children were sifting through the grass by the beach when they came across the urn among other washed up objects.

With the mystery now solved, Leonard is giving the urn back to Tricoche’s family, according to a comment he made on Sunday to his original Facebook post.

“Daughter has been located,” he said on Facebook. “Will be handing off this evening or tomorrow!”