The family jewel thief, or unsolvable mystery?

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08/25/2020 15:02

Subject: The family jewel thief, or unsolvable mystery?

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Anonymous

Complicated story, but here goes: MIL passed away some years back. She had inherited jewelry from her mother as well as an extensive collection she purchased for herself (compulsive shopper, in a very uncontrolled and unhealthy way; jewelry was one of several areas of overspending). Immediately after her death, my husband and I photographed and packed away all of her jewelry in an effort to remove it from spaces that might be accessible to people visiting the house in the future (mourners, cleaning staff to deal with other personal property, etc). FIL was in his early 80s at the time and not at top of his game in terms of capacity & decision-making, and had just lost his wife of 40+ years. Jewelry all packed away in attic where visitors/cleaners would not pass through.

A few months later, Cousin Susie (late 40s/early 50s maybe) and Aunt Bev (70s, Susie’s mom) came to stay at FIL’a house for the weekend. Drinks after dinner somehow ends up with a conversation about MIL’s jewelry and Susie telling FIL that MIL always said she’d leave her something (this was decades ago, before my husband married and had daughters). FIL heads to attic, brings down a couple of bags of jewelry, says (he thinks) “take something you’d like”. Next morning, Susie and Bev are packing up to leave, and Susie packs two grocery bags worth of jewelry into her luggage while FIL stands by, confused and “dismayed” but did not stop her. The day after they left, FIL emails Aunt Bev (his sister-in-law, wife of his late brother, with whom he’s had a good relationship) to say “I should have said something as Susie was gathering everything and was quite dismayed, please ask her to return it, none of late wife’s sisters/DIL/granddaughters have received anything yet.” Aunt Bev says Susie will send it back, and Susie says “I never gathered up anything, I just took what was handed to me, and of course I’ll send it all back.”

Well, she didn’t, and a few years passed. My husband and I have now gone through MIL’s jewelry and compared to photos that we took after she died (before Susie’s visit). There are 150+ rings, 50+ pairs of gold earrings, dozens of gemstone earrings, dozens of gold & diamond brooches missing. Husband contacted Susie and forwarded her the message in which she said she’d send it all back. Strange conversations ensue, including one in which she explains how she took the stuff to a jeweler to see what could be resized and asking about keeping a couple of the rings she wears “all the time”. We did a FaceTime cal with her to see what she was now going to shop back, and she had MIL’s jewelry box (last photographed full off gemstone studs, now none; FIL’s arthritis is too bad to even manipulate those earrings, but she claims box is just as she received it). Of the 150+ missing rings, she has 31 she will send back, and maybe 20 pairs of gold earrings. The rings are all precious gemstone/gold or gold/diamond; overall, she took home probably tens of thousands of dollars in jewelry that she claims my then-84 yr old FIL “gave” her - full well knowing MIL had sisters, granddaughters, etc. And, she now says “no, it was never two grocery bags of jewelry” despite her email from a few years back in which SHE says “it was two grocery bags of jewelry”. We asked if she mixed the jewelry in with her other stuff and she says “well I’ve been through my drawers, and this is everything I have that FIL gave me”.

Husband is pretty darn certain he cleared out all of the jewelry from his dad’s house when he was there a couple of weeks ago (which is why we were now able to match it up against photos from before Susie’s visit).. No one comes into his dad’s house, as in he literally has no visitors or service providers, so it’s hard to figure out where it went.

So: help me out here. What to think? We are struggling a bit with Susie’s behavior and veracity here. What happened to the rest of the jewelry, much of which would have been in the same boxes as the pieces Susie has in her possession? We are, um, a bit suspicious.