Officers Recover Priceless Memento Months After Fatal Crash
LUNENBURG (CBS) - Mementos were left where AJ Robbins was killed, but his family hoped to find an item AJ was wearing at the time of his accident – a St. Christopher medal.
"I was really heartbroken," said his aunt Debbie Lynch.
Lynch gave the St. Christopher medal to protect her nephew when he graduated Lunenburg High. The football stand-out was 18, ready to take on the world. He was a passenger in a car that crashed on Hollis Road in August. Police said the driver was drunk. The medal was nowhere to be found.
"The medal was the last thing holding him there," his mom Carol Robbins said.
Lunenburg Police Lt. Mike Luth knows the family and had searched with no luck.
He still didn't think he would find it, but he had an idea. "No, I thought it was a last ditch chance to give it a shot," said Luth.
Two months after the crash - he called Bolton Police Lt. Luke Hamburger.
"I knew he uses metal detection for forensic work," said Luth.
Lt. Hamburger showed us how he went to work. "Came across old barbed wire, old bottle caps, things like that," said Hamburger.
After searching this area for two and half hours they were about to call it a day. Then they found what they were looking for buried three inches down in the dirt.
"It was a surprise. One of the best surprises I had in this line of work," said Hamburger.
The two officers quickly brought the medal to Carol who later gave it back to her sister. We were there as Aunt Debbie was able to thank Lt. Hamburger in person.
"Thank you," said Lynch.
"I am glad it's where it belongs," said Hamburger.
"I was there when he was born. I watched it. This was the last thing he had touching him," said Lynch.
"I was relieved there was nothing else tying him to that spot," said Robbins.
