Wealthy Thieves

Wealthy Thieves?

Even Rich People Steal!While I write a lot and writing this saddens me.

The Setup

My wife and I were engaged on December 27, 2004 and married on July 31, 2004. However, let me backup. Picking out my wife’s engagement ring was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. See, my wife loves architecture, as do I, but she loved it so much she changed careers to do design work, and she is fabulous at it. I agonized over the ring for a long time because I wanted it to be perfect. When the day came and I gave the ring to her, there was no mistaking the look on her face as to how much she loved and appreciated it. I will never forget it. She even said at one point, it looks like the Lenny Zacum(?) bridge. Now to most, this may not sound good, but trust me, to me this was exactly what I was looking for. She would hold the ring up to the light and look at it every night.

In March of 2005 we decided that we wanted to buy a bigger place than the one we were in when we got married (which was originally owned by my wife). We wanted a place to start a family. We found a place we loved right away so we made an offer and it was accepted. We then began the process of selling our existing place. My wife called a realtor that she had worked with in the past, liked, and put our house on the market and start showing it.

The Let Down

Now let me state for the record that we were selling a place in Brookline, a decent neighborhood, for more than $600K. Everything was going fine. At our first open house, we had a ton of people pass though with a lot of excitement, no offers but a lot of interest. Additionally, each night I would see an email from our realtor asking permission to come in the following day with perspective buyers to look at the place. Each request was met with a “no problem” and we made sure that the place was spic-n-span and in tip-top shape for the showing. This is an important piece of the story because, at times, my wife or I may work from home, so being prepared and out of the house for showing was important.

Then the let down. We had a number of showings back-to-back one week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Nothing came through on Wednesday evening so we thought there were no showings on Thursday. The following day, my wife was looking forward to getting a bunch of work done with the only interruption of the day being a cut and color hair appointment.
At 1PM, my wife goes to get her hair done, and when you get a color job on your hair, the dye can go everywhere, so my wife put her engagement ring on her nightstand so she wouldn’t get dye on the ring.

At 1:30 PM, the realtor came to our house with another realtor and a couple to look at our place but forgot to tell us he was coming. When my wife came home from her hair appointment and looked at her nightstand, which is directly across the hall way from the front door and the ring… was gone! After several frantic phone calls to me, she got on the phone and called the police who sent over an officer and passed the information to a detective who was “on the case”.

The Big Question

We were told, by the police during the process of their investigation, that the people looking at our place were a professional working woman and he is a professor at prestigious university here in Boston. We were also told that they did not fit the “profile” and that they would have no use for such an item because she had on a “very expensive” ring herself. Our realtor told also explained to us that the realtor with the couple looking at our place has been in the business of selling homes for over 20 years. He said she is very successful, has an impeccable reputation and knows what something like this would do to her business if she were guilty of taking the ring. Our realtor has been in the business for some time and he too knows what this would do to his business. I also believe you can tell a lot about someone by looking them in the eye and my gut tells me, he didn’t do it.

So the big question is where did it go? My wife left for only 2 hours and in that span of time, four people entered and left that home. Before they got there, the ring was there, when they left, it was gone. I asked the detective, “I have watched Law and Order enough, can’t you dust for prints or something?” to which he replied, “If we are not charging them then I can’t dust for prints.” (So much for Law and Order mirroring the truth.)

The detective had the names and numbers of all the people involved and question them, together and separately on a couple of occasions. After a week, he reported to us that none of them “cracked” and I should probably check the pawnshop log at the Boston Police Department but he did not believe any of these people did it. When I asked why again, he said, they don’t fit the profile, they are wealthy and they don’t need it. He also didn’t believe the realtors did it either as they know the impact this would have on them.

So again, I ask, where did it go? We tore the place apart and didn’t find it.

The Point

I share this because people really need to know whom they are dealing with at all times and that there really is no “profile”. I am convinced that one of the people that went into our home that day took that ring; there can be no others. I know all the people who were involved in this episode but choose not to share names, it wouldn’t do any good. These people know who they are, and I do believe in karma. Everyone gets what they deserve and they will get theirs.