It's Halloween season, meaning candy corn, Mallomars, pumpkin spice everything, and ... cookies with human remains? That's the snack that at least one California student reportedly brought to Da Vinci Charter Academy High School in Davis, per the San Francisco Chronicle, containing the not-appetizing ingredient of a grandparent's ashes. The Chronicle says it was her grandmother's remains, FOX40 says it was her grandfather's, but either way, Lt. Paul Doroshov of the Davis Police Department says nine students were reportedly given the cookies on Oct. 4 (it's not clear how many, if any, ate the cookies), and students are speaking to the media about their experience, per KCRA. "I was kind of horrified," Andy Knox says after a girl offered him a cookie with "her grandpa's ashes." Knox says the girl had whipped out an urn, supposedly with those same ashes, in class.
Doroshov says one student is believed to have baked the cookies, and a second helped distribute them; KCRA suggests they were related. The family of one student tells FOX40 they're upset with the school, which had their son sign a statement on the incident and told him to keep quiet. "The district seems to be a little bit more concerned about protecting themselves than protecting their students," the boy's father says. A statement from the principal notes, "I can say that those who were involved are remorseful and this is now a personal family matter." It doesn't appear anyone became ill, Doroshov tells ABC 7. It's unclear whether anyone will be charged with what Doroshov calls an "unconventional" crime, per CBS News, as cops say the incident may not be covered even by little-known California rules on human remains. (These thieves may have thought human ashes were drugs.)