Man lost the last pictures of his dead wife in a burglary—a year later, he got a mind-boggling call from police
When we lose our loved ones, the only tangible thing we have are their belongings and pictures of memories captured together. It holds dear to us as it brings back a time and a feeling of them. Similarly, a man named Dave Lacey adored the last few pictures he had of his late wife, Erica Werdel, per CNN. Unfortunately, he lost every last one of them in a burglary at his home. When he gave up hope and was shattered by losing the last few memories, he was surprised by a phone call he would remember for life. Lacey met Werdel at work and they eventually began to date. Knowing her as the person who could make anyone laugh, he adored her authentic and warm aura.
“She’s my best friend. She made me a better person. She made me a better man,” he remarked. A few weeks before their wedding, the bride-to-be fell ill. When she visited the doctor, she got a CT scan done. It revealed a softball-sized tumor pushing her heart and another one behind her diaphragm. Werdel was diagnosed with large B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a rare condition. Despite the doctor urging the couple to cancel the wedding due to the risk of infection, they remained adamant. “She wasn’t going to let cancer get in the way. She never sat back and said, ‘Woe is me.’ She never gave up,” Lacey recalled.
A few years later, Werdel passed away after a long battle. Lacey put aside the camera that contained the last pictures of her funeral and the last few glimpses of his wife. He thought he would download them, but grief overpowered him, pushing the task for later. Only a year later, his house was robbed and the suspects took jewelry and other valuables. However, Lacey was broken about one stolen item—his wife’s camera. “It just didn’t seem fair because after all that we went through, to lose those, it was like a punch in the gut,” he said. He added, “Even though those are hard pictures to see, they’re still something I want captured and want to remember.”
Santa Ana robbery detectives Paul McClaskey and Jerry Verdugo noted that only 5% of their cases end with victims getting their stolen items. Little did they know, they would include the most special retrieval in that 5%. Another victim’s “Find my iPhone” feature helped track the location of David Aguilar, a burglar who had stolen from several homes with his girlfriend. When they searched the place, they found pawn slips and retrieved over two dozen items. They found one camera still intact. “I remember the photographs that came up, it appeared to be a sign at a wake or memorial service,” McClaskey recounted.
Verdugo soon realized the camera was a “special one.” “It angered me. My thought was, ‘How are we going to find this person?’” There were no leads on Lacet, but the detectives continued their search. They came across a “beige wall” in some of the pictures and their sharp skills recalled an observation and helped them track the neighborhood. “Just something I can’t explain, I guess,” Verdugo noted. The officers spoke to a neighbor who revealed information about Lacey. The officers called him up with news he never thought he would hear. “I thought it was a joke at first. I had given up all thought of recovery,” he said. Despite going through the hands of a thief, a pawn shop and detectives, the pictures were all there, still intact. “I feel like someone was watching out for me just to get it back,” Lacey remarked.