Family members of a 68-year-old woman who went missing from the Alberta Hospital in Dec. and was later found frozen to death, are gathering signatures for a petition to demand the Alberta Fatality Review board look into her death.

Lorraine Julia Adolph's family members spent Saturday morning scattering her ashes at a farm west of Edmonton to provide some sort of closure to a death they say could have been prevented.

"They should have never let her out unattended," said Adolph's son, Barry Adolph. "If she's in a secure hospital and has to be let out with a key and in with a key why wasn't there somebody there watching her?"

Adolph's 68-year-old mother, who suffered from schizophrenia, went missing from the geriatric unit of the Alberta Hospital on Dec. 4 after she went outside to go have a cigarette. Two days later Edmonton police issued a news release; appealing to the public to help find the missing senior.

Adolph's body was discovered a week later on the morning of Dec.11 by an Edmonton police officer doing a follow-up investigation into her disappearance. Her body was found frozen in the snow about 400 metres away from the hospital under an alcove on Fort Road.

Family members are now circulating a petition to demand the Alberta Fatality Review Broad conduct a full inquiry into her death; so far the family has gathered 500 signatures.

"They left her unsupervised and we as a family feel that's simply negligence; it's carelessness," said Adolph's sister Esther Gehlert.

Justice Minister Allison Redford says the case is currently before the Fatality Review Board, which will make a recommendation as to whether the inquiry will go forward.

"I can't give you specific detail," said Redford. "It'll be up to the board to determine whether that happens."

Adolph's family is hoping the petition will push the Fatality Review Board to conduct a full inquiry, hopefully preventing other from suffering the same fate as their mother.

"I think what I would like to see out of this is preventable measure of something like this [from] happening again," said daughter Michelle Adolph.