Brooklyn indie rocker receives ashes of deceased stranger in mail

Special delivery from US ghost office.

The Brooklyn indie rocker received a package in the mail containing cremated human remains belonging to a stranger and was stunned when the funeral home that sent them told him it wasn’t their problem.

Hamilton Leithauser, 44, lead singer and frontman of popular indie punk band The Walkmen, was stunned on Tuesday when he opened a cardboard container to find the ashes inside another plain cardboard box.

“It’s just shocking. I’m like, “What do I do with this?” he told The Post. “It was a man. You have to show some respect.”

The remains were commemorated on October 17, 2017 and sent to the “current occupant” of his East Williamsburg studio apartment by John Funeral Home in Brownsville.

But when he tried to call the funeral home to sort things out, the owner was extremely unhelpful, Leithauser said.

“He said something like, ‘Now that’s your problem, and he actually hung up,'” he said. “He was a complete hole”

But before he hung up, the alleged ashtray let it slip that after no one came for the remains, he sent them to a man named Robbie – or possibly Ronnie – who may have lived at the same address around 2017.

Leithauser, who lost his mother last year, said he sympathized with the deceased, whose name is Walter, and everyone who may have loved him.

“I don’t want to be too sentimental, but my mother died last year and we have her ashes,” he said. “Now I feel affection for the old Walt. Nobody came for the dude,” he said.

He then said that he wanted to track down a possible relative.

“I would like to meet with Robbie and hand over the ashes to him or hand them over to a family member or someone who cares,” he said.

The box also showed the registration number of the Rosehill Crematorium in Linden, New Jersey, where a spokesperson told The Post that the funeral home had taken Walters’ remains.

The funeral home is responsible for ensuring that the remains reach a loved one or relative.

When The Post contacted funeral home owner John Neman on Wednesday, he apparently changed his mind.

“We’re going to pick them up,” he said, adding that he had “documents” bearing the name of at least one relative.

When asked why the ashes had not been sent for so long, he said: “No one came to pick it up … This was the address that they gave me.”

No address in New York was given, nor the full name of the deceased, nor an obituary printed in 2017.

Tuesday Leithauser tweeted, “I just received a package addressed to ‘acting resident’. The address was mine. Inside the bag are the cremated remains of a man dated October 2017. I do not know this person. I’ve been living here for 6 years.”

The city’s health department did not immediately respond to a request about what to do to a person who received the ashes of a stranger in the mail.

As for Leithauser, whose recently reunited band is known for punk hits like The Rat, he said he’s half seriously considering tackling the matter himself.

“I wonder if it’s best to bury him in the backyard,” he said.