ATLANTA - Someone stole a Georgia woman's car - with her grandmother's ashes inside - shortly after a memorial service for the deceased woman.

Ebony Simpson had just returned to Georgia from her grandmother's memorial service in Tennessee last week. About 24 hours after, the car was gone with the urn containing the ashes in the trunk, she told police in the Atlanta suburb of Norcross.

"I was going to put them on a mantel until I could decide what to do," she recalled Tuesday. "I was going to keep them until I felt ready to let them go."

The theft happened when Simpson stopped at a Norcross grocery store on April 23 and briefly turned away from her shopping cart in the aisle. A few minutes later, she realized her keys were missing. Then, Simpson said, she went to the parking lot and her car was gone.

"My grandmother was like my second mom," said the 28-year-old about 93-year-old Ernestine Simpson.

Any message for the thief?

"I would just like them to imagine if your child or your grandmother was in a car and somebody stole it and you couldn't do anything about it," she said.