By Brett Gillin
You never know what you’ll find when shopping through yard sales. In the case of one Indiana woman, she’s found a decade’s old mystery and a nationwide manhunt buried inside a treasure she picked up during a day of shopping. Now, she’s doing everything she can to return the bracelet she found to its rightful owner, but the task is proving more difficult than you might imagine.
Lynn Davalos, who lives in central Indiana, is looking for a soldier. The soldier she’s looking for happens to have a picture of himself buried inside a Sterling silver bracelet she picked up over a year ago in a yard sale. Since she first saw the picture, she’s been searching for the soldier or soldier’s family so she could give it back, but as of this writing, Davalos has had little luck.
According to this story on Fox 59, Davalos’ journey began with a yard sale over a year ago. Davalos, while shopping through a yard sale, happened to pick up a Sterling silver bracelet and couldn’t resist picking it up. Davalos thought it was a watch when she purchased the item, but upon further inspection when she brought it home, she realized this was something else entirely. It was actually a bracelet, and when she opened the clasp, she found a tiny picture of a World War II era soldier affixed to the inside of the bracelet.
“Two thousand three hundred and five,” Davalos proclaimed to Fox 59 while looking at the bracelet. That number is inscribed into the bracelet, and Davalos sees it as “a blessing.” She explained “It’s been on my desk, and I kept looking at it and keep thinking ‘how can i get the word out there. How can I reunite this with this gentleman’s family?”
Davalos went on to explain that her mother picked up this silver band, thinking it was a watch, from a local yard sale over a year ago. “She loves to find jewelry, knick-knacks in particular. She loves to find watches.” But this object, which she thought was a watch, ended up being a bracelet with a soldier’s picture embedded inside instead.
“It was very emotional when it popped open,” Davalos explained. “The hair stood up on my arms for some reason. When it popped open, I was staring at the face of a World War II soldier. Time is of the essence.”
Ever since discovering the picture of the soldier, the Davalos family has been posting on the picture on social media, hoping that someone would see the picture and recognize the soldier. So far, she has no clues, but she is encouraged that the picture is spreading around the internet. Inside of the bracelet is the name of a man and woman, etched into the silver, but Davalos doesn’t want to share those names. Instead, she hopes that the rightful owner will be able to give her those names as evidence that this belongs to that family.
For more information, or to reach out to Davalos, check out the Facebook page here.