True. But they don't generally devote months to scouring an area collecting pulltabs in order to find a small piece of jewelry. They usually give an area a quick once over , and more often than not the one using the detector is not exactly proficient with it , the odds of finding small jewelry that way are pretty low to non existent even if they were using ( or trying to understand
) a top of the line model.
I understand the generally part,,,but suppose a victim of a crime,,,had for example an earring missing,,,had only one on one ear when reporting or is discovered dead.
Or the assailant was seen wearing a certain piece of jewelry,,but cannot produce when asked.
I can see situations where items besides bullets and shell casings could indeed be worthy finds,,,,to connect assailant to crime scene,,or prove maybe of a victim was at a site before being transported to somewhere else.
Take one button of unusual design discovered at a crime scene,,,search warrants executed on suspect discovers a button missing on a shirt or jacket,,,and this one button found with metal detector at the scene-- could be a worthy piece of evidence.
And to add,,I have not read anywhere,,for example,,,just how long is DNA residue good for on an item accidently lost or purposefully lost,,or even buried???
And this time factor here-- if short,,another good reason to try and quickly find missing items connected to a crime.
There is no telling over the years,,how many actually guilty people have evaded conviction,,and the whole time,,the evidence was right there all the time,,but was not discovered or discovered timely.
Granted equal time can't be spent on all crime cases,,but some crime scenes do more than likely warrant extensive searching for evidence based on the severity of the crime committed.
It is very possible some of the jewelry finds even posted on this forum,,were in fact linked to a crime committed in the past.
This is not meant to insinuate someone here is in fact a criminal.
Other items here that could be valuable,,,wallets,,car keys,, cell phones,,ink pens with information on them, snuff cans, cigarette packs, brushes or combs containing metal, chewing tobacco bags, watches, hair berets, purses, items generally found inside purses, lockets, beer cans, shoes.
In more remote sites,,even clad money could be of value.
Parts from auto, motorcycle or off road vehicle.
Also crime scenes not always shallow shorter grass,,could be taller weeds and even water,,and caves, and old mining sites.
