Gold Wedding Ring Lost In Cape Elizabeth, Maine Leaves, Found With A Metal Detector
On Tuesday, May 26th, I received the following voicemail,
Hi, my name is Missy D******. Um, I have a ring that needs locating. If you’re available, Um, it is a men’s, um, pretty heavy gold wedding band that was lost on Sunday afternoon. I know the general area where it may be. And yesterday we looked ourselves with the metal detector, but we only found like keys and nails. Um, so we’re hoping you might have some better luck. Uh, we are at ** ******* in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Um, and the phone number is 410-***-****. hoping you can help us out. Um, looking forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you. Bye.
I called Missy back and she told me that just a few days earlier, she and her husband Joe, had been doing yard work, on their property. Joe had been raking leaves, pulling dead vegetation and picking up downed branches, from the winter. Joe would then take those items, load up his John Deere Gator, and drive them to the composting area and dump the contents. At the end of the day, around 6-7pm, Joe noticed his wedding ring was no longer on his finger. Remembering some photos that had been taken around lunchtime, Joe and Missy looked at the photos, to see if Joe had his wedding ring on, at that time. Sure enough, at approximately 11:45am, there is a photo of Joe with his wedding ring ON his finger. Now, just 6 or so hours later, it was gone. After asking Missy many questions, Missy to me that Joe’s parents live next-door and at one point went over there and was inside their house. Joe had also gone inside his house and played with his 2 1/2 year old daughter, Imogen. Other than that, Joe had been outside for hours and hours, cleaning up their property. I told Missy I could search first thing in the morning. Missy would show me the areas Joe had been working in most and I would go from there. Joe and Missy had already borrowed a metal detector and had searched the most likely areas, the previous day, with finding the ring.
Once I arrived, I wasn’t prepared as to how big of an area needed to be searched. The most likely spots the ring would have come off, was around the house, where Joe had been collecting leaves and the other vegetation. Rings, typically don’t just fall off your finger. You are usually doing something like picking up all the items Joe had picked up. Joe was also tossing those items, into the Gator and there was a good chance his ring had come off around the house or dumped out back, near the composting area. Missy showed me the area around the house Joe had been working and the composting area. She and Joe really thought it would be in the composting area, among the branches or leaves and I wasn’t going to argue. It is definitely and area the ring could be hiding. I decided to start my search down in the composting area, since I was already there. The area had multiple areas where I could see where leaves, branches, grass clippings and food had been dumped. Not all were recently dumped and I decided to check all the areas. The area had already been searched with a metal detector, by Joe and just like Joe, I came up empty handed. I then decided to search the areas around thee house, where Joe had been picking up all the yard debris and was throwing it into the John Deere Gator. Again, I came up unsuccessful, in locating the Wedding Ring. I then started searching the entire property between the man made pond and the house. This is some of the area that Joe would have driven the Gator, to and from his work area, to his dump area. I really wasn’t confident the ring was going to be found, in this area. It’s not an area Joe had been working in but only traveling through. But, in searches like this, you need to be thorough , just in case. The yard was full of metal an I mean full. There seemed to be wiring, pipes and other assorted metal. I would find out later that in fact there was metal, buried all over the property, from years of different kinds of projects. This slowed me down immensely and I was able to search about 1/2 the yard, when I decided to call it a day. I had now been here a little over 3 hours and I would like to return to finish searching but would also like to have Joe there with me and point out the exact areas, he had been. I also wanted to break down some of the piles of leaves, branches and any other piles that could be hiding the wedding ring. Since the area was much larger than I anticipated, I also wanted to bring Gary Hill with me so that not only could we recheck areas already searched, we would search the remainder of the lawn and around his parents property. I let Missy know of my plan and she told me Joe would be home all weekend and he absolutely could help by breaking down the piles of debris. We decided that this up coming Sunday would be the day to resume the search.
So on Sunday, May 31st, Gary and I arrived nice and early, at 7:30am. Joe came right out to meet up and walked up around the property. Joe told us he remembered that he had also thrown some branches and brush, into a marshy area, behind one of yhe piles dumped leaves and branches. Awesome, a new area to search. Joe had to get back up to the house and do somethig, so Gary and I started searching the new area that Joe had thrown some branches. After searching the very wet area, the ring remained elusive. I started breaking down a pile of leaves, to flatten it out. The piles were deep of fresh and old leaves. I also threw a bunch of branches out into the marshy area, to get them out of the way. Gary would start searching some of the other piles. After 30-45 minutes, Joe returned with a rake and saw the one pile I had broken down didn’t need to be broken down any further. Joe thought for sure the ring would have been in that pile of leaves and branches. Joe then took us up to the area around the house and showed us where he was standing, when the photo, showing his ring at noonish, had been taken. Gary and I searched the area again. I had searched it a few days earlier and Joe had searched it almost a week ago. Still no wedding ring. I asked Gary to search the area of Joe’s Parents property, that Joe had traversed across. I would pick up where I had left off, in my previous search. With Joe still walking along with us, visually searching, I told him that Gary and I were out of options. I wanted to check the piles of leaves one more ime before we finished. This time I started on the pile to the far right. I was a large pile of leaves that had been searched with a metal detector by Joe, myself and Gary. As I was finishing up the area, Joe asked if he should level the pile down even more, since it was still a large pile. I told him to go for it and I would be back in a few minutes, after I searched the next pile of leaves. Just about 3 minutes later, I hear Gary yelling, Dennis, Dennis, I got it. WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I rushed over to where Gary was and he to Joe and I that he has a solid low tone, ringing up as a 34 on his TID. Definitely in the gold range. Gary said he saw just a glimpse of gold when he heard the target but the object had disappeared back in the pile of leaves. As Joe and I stood there watching Gary, Missy and Imogen heard the commotion and were comng across the lawn. I moved up to the pile as Gary was probing the pile with his pinpointer. We then heard the pinpointer go of and Gary started removind a few leaves at a time, so as to not move the target once again. Finally, a white gold ring appeared. After almost another 3 hours of two of us searching, Joe’s Weddind Ring had been found, by Gary. Just crazy that this pile of leaves had been searched 4-5 times but until Joe was breaking it down, the ring had stayed hidden. Joe di tell us that a week ago he had moved some of thee leaves and may have pushed the ring either deeper into the leaves or to the back side and only now reappeared as he was breaking the pile down further. To Gary and I, it didn’t matter. The ring had been found. We left the ring where it was found and let Imogen “find” the ring and give it to “Daddy”. A very sweet moment, captured on video. Everyone was in disbelief that after maybe 11-12 man hours of searching a very large property, Joe had his wedding ring back, thanks to our newest ring finder, Imogen.
So, Gary and I don’t like giving up and continued to searh and it paid off. With Imogen, Joe and Missy’s help, another ring was back on the finger. A true team effort. “We have the best job in the world. I love my job. If it matters to you, it matters to us.”
