Homophobic In laws Steal Dead Daughters Ashes And Take Stepdaughter

They found true love in life, and pure hate in death.



A Staten Island widow, reeling from her wife’s death, watched helplessly as her homophobic in-laws stole her bride’s ashes — and her stepdaughter.



The widow’s cruel kin then took their 12-year-old granddaughter and the ash-filled urn to The Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn, secretly burying Elina Cataldo’s remains on Monday.



“I want the ashes returned,” said Chris Cataldo, a 43-year-old retired city cop. “It’s all I ever wanted. I just want to grieve in peace. I lost my wife. I lost my best friend.”



Hulking Russian immigrant Gemadiy Grinman, 63, delivered a malevolent message to Cataldo, according to court records.



The little girl “is not coming back to stay with you to finish school,” threatened Grinman, who packs 250 pounds on his 5-foot-8 frame. “The ashes are mine and will be buried with my wife’s family because you are not my family.”



But the bluster didn’t last long. The in-laws were arrested Monday, and the granddaughter was returned home.



Cataldo was hardly surprised by the vitriol coming from father-in-law Grinman and his wife, Svetlana, 58.



“They never liked me,” she said. “The parents never liked me for obvious reasons. I had a very tumultuous relationship with them.”