I found a diamond – how do I find owners? There is a bit of drama…

Location: Washington State

This is a long dramatic story and despite appearances I have kept it short! I also kept out a lot of the speculations but idk.. us employees have our ideas of what happened.

Okay, so at the time I worked in this nicer restaurant as a server – things have since gone south and I’m no longer there, or any of the other staff. The owners of the place were new, and it’s their first business, but the restaurant has been there a while.

October 2024 my coworkers were wrapping the night up and got a call from a patron that they had JUST lost the diamond out of her engagement ring. My three coworkers spent 10-15 minutes looking all over for it – one coworker calls back the same number and tells the couple they could not find it, they were understandably devastated. Coworker takes their number down and in multiple places so it doesn’t get lost.

November 2024.. end of night we’re all cleaning and as I’m sweeping I see a flash in the dustpan. I pick it out and it’s the diamond – I tell everyone I found it and we’re all so excited! I say to the owner (who was not there the night it was lost) to get her notes so we can call these people back. Long story short she cannot find them and blames the lost notes on her four year old daughter. The notes from the night it was lost are also gone. Diamond is labeled and put in safe.

A week or two goes by and there is no update so we – the staff – begin calling all the reservations from that night asking if anyone lost anything valuable but we don’t say what it was. No takers… We suggest the owner pull the phone records from that night and she says she already has.

More time passes and the female owner (the owners are a married couple) mentioned to the male owner and the rest of us that after 90 days if you’ve made an effort to find the owner of lost property and have not been able to that the finder can keep the property. Male owner says “well ____ found it” (it was me that found it)

More time passes. Female owner occasionally mentions there is still no news on the diamond… she also mentions to coworker at shift change that she’s had the diamond appraised and it’s worth 12k

Now it’s well into November/December and the staff keeps receiving bad checks. By January every single check I was given bounced and my coworkers had the same experience.

February I’m out of the country but I hear from my coworkers that they’ve all quit. I get back late February and tell the owners I would like to work with them but I need to be paid on time and in full. They agree. I work one shift and they fired me for misconduct. I promise you I wasn’t out of line. It was a normal night.. and while I was disappointed about the direction things had gone I don’t act on that while working.

After being fired I didn’t feel the diamond would find the owners and it had been several months so I called our local police department and after they checked in a few times, and some back and forth, they’ve reported to me they have the diamond in their possession. I also received nasty texts from my ex employer over me sending the cops..

The officer on this case has told me that the police would hang onto it and if no owner was found it would become police property. They say they cannot move forward much on the case because they’re still waiting on the phone records from that night in October when the diamond people called and then like ten minutes later we called them back… The owners said they’d provide police with phone records and because this isn’t a criminal thing the police cannot force the phone records.

So that’s the story – this part is just gossip but many people are suspicious of the owner having a substance abuse problem based on her behavior, appearance, and customer reviews…

here’s what I need advice on – how can we find the owner of the diamond? Should I go to the news? What if it’s a sentimental family heirloom … If we cannot find them then I would obviously love to win the lottery and I believe I might have a claim to it. Should I just go talk to the police department and speak to someone in charge? I know the owner has said lots of things about us and I bet this diamond case is no different..

Thank you all for your time and help! :)..