Girl baked grandfather's ashes into cookies and gave them to classmates, police say

A high school student mixed her cremated grandfather's ashes into homemade biscuits and gave them to classmates, police in California have said.

The youngster and a friend shared the cookies with nine other pupils at Da Vinci Charter Academy in the city of Davis. Not all of them, it appears, were told about the macabre ingredient.

But Paul Doroshov, lieutenant with Davis Police, said it was unlikely anyone would be charged with a crime in connection with the incident.

He admitted investigators were unsure if one had, technically, even been committed.

A classmate who tried one said he had not known about the human touch when he first bit into the biscuit.

"She had mentioned her grandpa's ashes before," said Andy Knox. "She told me there's a special ingredient in the cookie."

He said he tried one without linking the two things but became worried afterwards. "I thought that she put drugs in it or something," he said.

The boy added that the girl laughed and said the cookie contained her grandfather's ashes. "I was kind of horrified," he said. "If you ever ate sand as a kid, you know, you can kind of feel it crunching in between your teeth. There was a little tiny bit of that."

Investigators said other students knew of the ashes before eating the biscuits.

Lt Doroshov said he and investigators were at a loss to identify a motive. "They're juveniles and it's not a heinous or serious crime," he said, adding there was no public health risk.

"I really don't think it fits into any crime section," he said and revealed investigators had looked at an obscure law which made it illegal to mishandle human remains, but "this isn't what that law was intended to stop".

Tyler Millsap, head teacher, said in a statement posted on Facebook and emailed to parents that the incident had "been particularly challenging and we have responded appropriately and in the most respectful and dignified way possible".