a necklace with a cross and beads on it.... Guest told her that the cross was made from human foot bone, and that it had come from the Dominican.
I see that Mandrina thought "came from the
Dominican Republic", but my immediate thought was "came from the Dominicans", i.e., the
Dominican Order - the description "a necklace with a cross and beads on it" sounds like a rosary, and I see from the Wikipedia article that the Dominican Order is very big on that concept. (OTOH, the Dominican Republic is very heavily Catholic, so that could go either way.)
Since I was thinking in that direction, the "made from human foot bone" part called to mind relics of saints - which may not be directly relevant (saints' relics are usually protected by some kind of container, and a rosary incorporating a relic wouldn't be very likely to be in private hands), but if nothing else is an example of a (mainstream Western) tradition in which such usage is not desecrative or disrespectful at all.
I'm noting this mainly in connection with Marilyn's suggestion that discovering the necklace's significance would be of prime importance - I strongly agree with that (and the rest of what she said), and am suggesting another possible avenue to check out.
I also concur with what Randall said; it's never wise to ignore alternate possible causes.
Also - IME, which, while fairly extensive, is far from universal so I'm not saying this
is the case - when someone explicitly says that something is made from human bone, they're virtually always doing it for the "ooky-spooky" impact, and frequently are either lying outright (i.e., know darn well that's not what it's made of) or don't actually have any idea at all whether that's what it's made of or not. (Since the idea of "made from human bone" is unavoidably "ooky-spooky" in Western thinking, those who
don't want that kind of effect generally avoid saying that, and choose less provocative phrasings, or don't mention it at all.)
Sunflower
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