By BERNIE HORNICK
A Johnstown mom is pressing the DA’s office for criminal restitution for a stolen container holding her dead baby’s ashes, though authorities don’t have the child’s name and aren’t positive the infant ever existed.
District Attorney Kelly Callihan has filed a petition asking the court to review why the defendant did not pay the $500 at the time of his sentencing.
Carey Toth of Johnstown has alleged that a container containing the cremated remains was stolen from her Johnstown home April 17. Also stolen were $20, some jewelry, a watch and a Pittsburgh Pirates hat.
Derek J. Tate, 19, of Westmont, was charged with abuse of a corpse and five theft-related counts. In a December plea bargain, he pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property.
County Judge Gerard Long suspended a jail term of up to nearly two years so Tate could enter YouthBuild to develop job skills.
Full restitution has not been paid. But the clerk of court’s office said Wednesday that Tate has paid $140 toward the $650 owed to Toth, but nothing yet on the $2,082 to State Farm for what was paid to Toth on an insurance claim.
Toth’s ex-fiance – an inmate at SCI-Cresson – wrote to The Tribune-Democrat casting doubt on her whole story.
“There never was a baby! No birth, no death, no cause!” Christopher G. Rowe, 35, wrote in January.
“I know because I would of (sic) been the father. Carey attempted to convince me and my family and friends that she was pregnant. When this failed, she claimed a stillborn in a very disturbing way.”
One of Rowe’s family members said Toth claimed to be pregnant, and even had a baby shower, because she became jealous when Rowe fathered a child to another woman.
That child now is just more than 2 years old.
Toth, 34, has refused recently to give the name of the baby or even say where he was born.
She likewise refused to give The Tribune-Democrat a name.
“I don’t want to get into all that because I don’t know what he (Rowe) is saying to you,” Toth said. “I’m the victim in the situation.”
She said that part of the case – abuse of a corpse – is closed.
But Tate, admittedly a thief and a friend of Toth’s teenage son, remains under a cloud for not turning over a box reportedly containing the remains to the mother.
“This is my personal life, and I don’t want things being put out there,” Toth said.
Since questions were raised by The Tribune-Democrat, Toth retained Robert Davis Gleason as her legal counsel.
The Cambria County coroner’s office has no record of a 2007 death for a Gavin Rowe, the name Christopher Rowe said his family was given.
In December, Toth testified under oath in Tate’s case that her child’s ashes were stolen, Callihan said, though she did not give the baby’s name.
A Johnstown police officer, in an affidavit of probable cause, said he was told by Toth that among the stolen items was “her infant baby’s (deceased) remains, which were in a wooden box.”
Tate’s attorney, public defender Lisa Lazzari, did not return a phone call for comment.
Rowe said his former fiancee offered a false death certificate to him and his family.
“On this and the box of alleged ashes, she put my name and the nonexistent child’s name,” Rowe wrote.
He said the certificate was rather quickly found to be a fraud by a family member familiar with death certificates by tracking genealogies.
Cambria County Coroner Dennis Kwiatkowski said he had no record for the death of a Gavin Rowe.
“We asked about her pregnancy,” said the Rowe family member who didn’t want to be named for fear of legal reprisals from Toth. “She never wanted to talk about it.
“Did he (Rowe) have another child?” The relative said this question has tormented the family for more than two years.
Rowe has been in and out of jail for two decades on charges ranging from burglary to domestic violence and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He said recently that he now is up for parole.
