Again... similar story happened last year my friend was detecting his home beach and a women frantically came up to him telling him she lost her ring when she was shaking out her blanket.. he searched for quite a while then suggested she check her car seats or under them or at home... they had exchanged numbers in case he found it.. she called him and told him she found it in the refrigerator
Yup. I've heard that scenario.
Or how about the case in the news where a young couple found a diamond ring in a store parking lot. The stone was so big, they naturally assumed it was costume jewelry. So it sat on their night-stand for a few weeks.
Till one day, curiosity got the better of them, and they decided to take it a jeweler to find out if the stone was real. And if so, "how much is it worth ?" The local jeweler was not a gemologist, so he told the couple to
"leave it here, and the travelling gemologist comes through this part of the county a few times per month. I'll have him take a look at it when he comes by here in a few days"
A few days later, the gemologist looked at under his scope. And realized something looked earily familiar. He checked his records, and found that he'd gotten a fax (that had been sent out to all gemologists, pawn shops, buy-sell-trade places, etc...) about this. The ring was reported stolen, and stone was some super valuable $20k diamond (or whatever).
The young couple was set up in a sting operation to come to the jewelry store, and FBI sprung from hiding and put the cuffs on them ! They tried to explain they only "found" it, and weren't trying to "hawk" it. But it looked pretty damming, because they'd asked things previously like "how much is it worth?".
Eventually the cops believed their story. And it turns out, the owner (a travelling business-women who'd only been passing through that town) had indeed simply lost it in the parking lot. And it hadn't been "stolen". But she wasn't clear on WHEN it had gone missing, so she'd thought perhaps "stolen" the night before by the hotel cleaning lady, or some such scenario. So when she'd gone to make an insurance claim, they required a police report. And in such cases, I guess the police just say "lost/stolen" (since it's not known exactly).
And the insurance company, not wanting to be on-the-hook for such a large payout, had enlisted private investigators, which had put out "BOL's" for it, etc....
Bottom line is: there's a case where someone assumes "stolen", when in fact, it was simply fumble fingers.
