Donald Prutting called the prison for weeks, trying to collect his brother’s ashes. Jacqueline Ciccone was handed a clear plastic bag of possessions at the hospital just before her son died, then spent months trying to piece together what had happened to him in jail. After Tammy Reed’s son died, the prison gave her a box that contained what appeared to be someone else’s clothes and shoes.

When someone dies behind bars, the officials who run prisons and jails don’t always return all of their belongings to their loved ones. Books, drawings, letters, and other memorabilia, for many families, are precious reminders of the person they’ve lost. In some places, corrections officials hold on to property until they finish investigating the death. Other places keep the property until a court officially names someone to manage it or the family submits the right paperwork, a process that can drag on for weeks, or even months. And if some beloved memento goes missing, families have little recourse.

The Marshall Project spoke with five families about the belongings they did — or didn’t — receive after their loved ones died in custody, and asked what those keepsakes meant to them as they mourned.

The Missouri Department of Corrections declined to comment on the Reed case, but said that, in general, families have 60 days to claim property after a death.

The West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation declined to comment on Haines’ property.

An email to the Federal Bureau of Prisons received an automated reply, saying it was not available to respond because of the government shutdown. The Washington D.C. Department of Corrections and the Kentucky Department of Corrections did not respond to requests for comment.