26-Year-Old Man Charged with Littering After Allegedly Dumping Woman’s Cremated Remains with 500-Lb. Trash Pile By Raven Brunner

The cremated remains of a woman who died in 2024 were recently found in a large pile of illegally dumped trash. 

On Oct. 30, Charlotte County Sheriff officers responded to an area in Punta Gorda, Fla., where they found a pile of trash that weighed over 500 pounds, according to ABC7. Amid the trash was a bag labeled with cremated human remains, the outlet reported. 

Daniel Rolando, 26, has since been charged with one felony count for littering over 500 lbs. of commercial or hazardous waste, per ABC7. 

Gulf Coast News reported that the human remains were identified as 39-year-old Nina Monica Brown, who died in 2024.

Resident Heather Lemcool claimed, per the outlet, that the human remains were in a box and plastic bag, rather than an urn. “Her name, day to day, date of birth and date of death, and the funeral home was all on this, ID card attached to the ashes,” she said. 

Gulf Coast News added that majority of the trash belonged to an unidentified Sarasota woman whose storage unit was auctioned off on Oct. 16 after she defaulted on her contract. However, the woman said she does not know how the human remains ended up in the pile. 

The outlet also noted that authorities met with a storage unit employee, who told them that the winner of the auction for the woman’s unit was Rolando, the 26-year-old suspect.

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Investigators said, per ABC7, that they obtained surveillance and records showing Rolando purchasing two storage units during the auction. Allegedly, the suspect later admitted to dumping the items he did not want. 

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Officers took Rolando into custody when he returned to the area to clean the trash pile, according to ABC7. 

Rolando has since been released on bond, per NewsBreak. 

PEOPLE reached out to the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office for additional information on Sunday, Nov. 9, but did not receive an immediate response.

Brown’s friend Precious Tunstall told Wink News that the late mother battled sickle cell and wasn’t expected to “live past the age of 21.”

“They told her that she would never bear children. She had four beautiful children, two girls, two boys, and she did everything that she had to do to provide for those babies,” Tunstall added. 

The friend wants to obtain the woman’s remains and return them to her family.

“It was very inconsiderate of him to just dump her on the side of the road,” Tunstall said. “I would like to have her ashes back, her remains back, so her children can have her remains.”