BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WXYZ) — More than 50 years after a home invasion in Bloomfield Township, a family is reunited with a precious piece of their past: a Highland Park Police Department service weapon nearly 100 years old.
The gun was discovered at a pawn shop nearly 800 miles away in Lamar County, Alabama.
Working in the detective bureau of the Bloomfield Township Police Department, Sgt. AJ Sparks is used to doing some digging. However, a call this October sent him searching for a cold case more than 50 years old.
“It's one that I'll certainly remember forever," Sparks said. "Never thought something that occurred well before I was born was something I would be investigating and looking into.”
The call came from a sheriff's department in Alabama. A gun at a pawn shop came up as stolen and the serial number was traced to a 1970 home invasion in Bloomfield Township. However, Sparks discovered he owner of the gun was now deceased, so he turned to ancestry sites on the internet.
“Found out that he had passed away, but there listed a next of kin, a possible daughter Kristin Vajs," Sparks said.
“I think we had long ago given up any hope that anything was going to turn up,” said Vajs, who now lives in Virginia with her husband Stephen.
Kris remembers that home invasion vaguely when the 1927 Colt 38 revolver that had belonged to her grandfather was stolen. Her father kept it in a case in their home at the time.
This year, she was going through old audio tapes her grandfather made telling stories of his past when Sparks gave her a call.
“It almost felt like a message from another world because I had just finished transcribing this autobiography and I really felt like I kind of know him,” Vajs said.
Her grandfather, Dean Preston Sims, was a police officer in Highland Park and the gun was his service weapon. Suddenly, the photos and stories came to life for Vajs and her husband.
“The pleasure of something tangible that you know was part of their lives,” Stephen Vajs said.
Sparks said it's rare that something stolen 50 years ago ever is returned to its owner.
"I would say the chances are very slim, probably less than 1%," Sparks said. "I've never heard of anything like that.”
This week, Kris was finally reunited with her grandfather's gun. She thanks Sparks for his relentless effort to return it.
“He was really showing all the best aspects of good policing," Kris said of Sparks. “Definitely sort of beyond the call of police duties.”
