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This is a scenario which really occurred but it was a few years ago, and I don't know what the final outcome was.
Friends of my teenage kid were playing near a road bridge over a shallow body of water in a rural but highly traveled area. With a bare foot one of them felt something hard in the mud. He brought the object up and it was a laptop!
My kid having the reputation of a computer geek, they brought it to him to see if he could make it usable. My kid was able to get some info off of it, including a personal name and name of an international company headquartered in Atlanta. The surname is one of the most common in the world, but the first name narrowed it down a lot. A phone book was consulted and someone by that name was located in Atalanta. A message to the effect of "are you missing a laptop?" was left on an answering machine. I forget if an email or a phone number was left for any response--probably an email addy.
I, meanwhile, was feeling a bit nervous about the situation. Seemed to me the laptop probably landed in the river or lake or whatever on purpose. I imagined some sort of criminal evidence being disposed of, then my son contacting--- who? A criminal? A person the laptop was stolen from? Someone came all the way from Atlanta to southern Missouri to toss a laptop? What might be so motivating?
No response ever came from Atalanta and we did not press it. I think son got the laptop into somewhat working order and gave it back to the young man who had found it.
I wonder if we should have given it to police here, or maybe where it was found? Should we have advised the young man who found it to make a police report?
What would you have done at any point in the story?
Friends of my teenage kid were playing near a road bridge over a shallow body of water in a rural but highly traveled area. With a bare foot one of them felt something hard in the mud. He brought the object up and it was a laptop!
My kid having the reputation of a computer geek, they brought it to him to see if he could make it usable. My kid was able to get some info off of it, including a personal name and name of an international company headquartered in Atlanta. The surname is one of the most common in the world, but the first name narrowed it down a lot. A phone book was consulted and someone by that name was located in Atalanta. A message to the effect of "are you missing a laptop?" was left on an answering machine. I forget if an email or a phone number was left for any response--probably an email addy.
I, meanwhile, was feeling a bit nervous about the situation. Seemed to me the laptop probably landed in the river or lake or whatever on purpose. I imagined some sort of criminal evidence being disposed of, then my son contacting--- who? A criminal? A person the laptop was stolen from? Someone came all the way from Atlanta to southern Missouri to toss a laptop? What might be so motivating?
No response ever came from Atalanta and we did not press it. I think son got the laptop into somewhat working order and gave it back to the young man who had found it.
I wonder if we should have given it to police here, or maybe where it was found? Should we have advised the young man who found it to make a police report?
What would you have done at any point in the story?
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