Theft of rings further saddens woman’s passing

In the 46 years Connie Remillard was married, she never took off her wedding ring. Not once.
So when the nurses at Woonsocket’s Landmark Medical Center told her they’d need to cut the band because of swelling in her hand, Connie and her husband, Bob, begged them not to.
The staff relented and worked the ring off Remillard’s hand intact. When it slid off her knuckle, Connie Remillard cried.
Days later, Remillard, 67, of Blackstone, Mass., died at Landmark. Her death was sudden and her husband and three daughters took it hard.
What happened days later was harder still. On Jan. 30, a day after her funeral, the Remillard family returned to the Holt Funeral Home to retrieve Connie’s rings. At her wake, she’d had worn the wedding band once more, along with her diamond engagement ring, which she’d removed for safety’s sake before going into the hospital.
As the Remillards waited in the Holt foyer that afternoon, the police say, Warwick resident Sean Robertson stole the rings and flushed them down the toilet just a few feet away.
Woonsocket police say Robertson, 40, of 201 Riverside Ave., Apt 5, and his mother were at the funeral home visiting a deceased family member. When Holt owner Cynthia Noble stepped out of the room, Robertson allegedly grabbed the velvet box containing Remillard’s rings off a table and concealed them in his clothing.
Noble told the police she returned to the room and noticed Robertson standing awkwardly above a bag of Remillard’s belongings. He then asked to use the restroom, where the police say he hid the jewelry box above the ceiling tiles.
By then, Noble noticed the rings were missing and announced that she was calling the police. That’s when Robertson allegedly returned to the restroom and flushed the jewels down the toilet, said Woonsocket Police Lt. Timothy S. Paul.
Robertson was called to the Woonsocket police station that night for questioning, Paul said. He was charged with larceny over $500 and arraigned. He was then ordered held at the Adult Correctional Institutions.
“This all happened while we were sitting right there,” Bob Remillard said, his voice tired. “My daughters were going to share [the rings], but then the theft occurred and they were flushed and there is no hope of getting them back.”
That same night, Noble called in a plumber to try and extract the rings from the plumbing, she said. They found the box in the pipe, but the rings were gone.
“When we saw the box, our hearts soared, but the plumber shined a light on it and saw that it was in the open position, empty,” Noble said. “It was just a shock that anyone would do something like that. It was a feeling of powerlessness as we tried to do something to solve it and then disappointment when we couldn’t.”
“What can I say? It’s done. It’s over. There’s not much you can do about it,” Bob Remillard said, his words trailing off.
His daughter Diane, was more emotional.
“It’s hard,” she said, through tears. “It was like the last piece of my mom.”