$400K jewelry collection recovered from cab
Tue Aug 17, 11:41 AM
VANCOUVER (CBC) - A California couple who left $400,000 worth of jewelry in a Vancouver cab are praising the honesty of a local cab driver and the dispatcher who helped them track it down.
Phyllis Snelling and her husband were heading home to California on Saturday after returning from an Alaska cruise out of Vancouver.
When the couple got to the airport, they realized they had left a backpack containing the jewelry in a cab.
Snelling didn't remember the name of the cab company, but her husband insisted it was Black Top.
Airline officials tried to help by calling several taxi firms, but to no avail, so the couple filed a police report and flew home.
When they got there, Snelling tried again to reach the cab companies in Vancouver. Several hours later, a Black Top dispatcher phoned back with a message saying they had used a GPS to locate the driver who had the backpack.
The couple then flew back to Vancouver to retrieve the jewelry, which Snelling said had both financial and sentimental value.
"Some of it inherited from my mother, some of it [was] given to me by my husband on various occasions, you know, beautiful, beautiful things, but it was all in this backpack," she said.
Snelling said she took the jewelry on the trip because it was a special occasion to see her daughter, who lives in Chicago, and the two planned to dress up together for some of the formal nights on the ship.
"She said to me, 'Oh, and Mom, bring a lot of jewelry so we can try stuff on and figure out what the best things are to wear,'" said Snelling.
Snelling said she's grateful for all the help she and her husband got while in Vancouver and Richmond.
"It reaffirms my faith that there are very good people in the world," she said.
"I really want to thank the people who live in such a wholesome and nice place, because my impression of Vancouver was very positive from the beginning. I feel it's a very clean, and happy city. It kind of radiates a certain energy. But this experience could have tainted that feeling. Instead, it enhanced the feeling," she said.
The Snellings gave the driver a $1,000 reward and the dispatcher $2,000.