NEWS

Ultimate ricochet: Stolen gun comes home after 33 years

Trace Christenson
Battle Creek Enquirer

OLIVET - After 33 years, an old friend has come home to the Montague home.

Richard Montague with his recovered rifle.

“We frankly had forgotten all about it,” Richard Montague said Wednesday from his Lee Township home. “I hadn’t thought about it for years and we never expected to get it back.”

But the Remington Nylon 66 .22 caliber rifle was returned to the couple recently by the Calhoun County Sheriff Department.

The gun was stolen during a burglary of their home on Sept. 1, 1982, and recently recovered in Tennessee.

Sheriff Department Detective Steve Hinkley said the gun was purchased at an estate sale years ago, but when the owner attempted to sell it recently the serial number was checked and it was recorded as stolen in Michigan.

Police from Covington, Tenn., contacted Calhoun County deputies who found the police report and then found the Montagues.

“I have never recovered anything from that long ago,” Hinkley said. “The best part of this case is we were able to get it back to the owner.”

According to the original police report, the gun was taken during a burglary at the same home where the Montagues now live. They didn’t discover it was missing until the next day.

“We weren’t gone but 20 minutes,” Montague said Wednesday. “We didn’t even lock the house.”

The couple noticed a window was open when they returned but didn’t think much more about it until the next day when Montague reached for the rifle he kept in the dining room.

“At the time we had livestock and we had rats and I would take it with when I would do chores and I had shot a lot of rats.”

Marge Montague purchased the gun for her husband, maybe for Christmas or maybe for his birthday, she couldn’t remember.

“He had not had it very long,” she said. “It was a new gun.”

When they realized the gun was gone they also discovered that a screen had been taken out of the window and realized that someone had entered their home. They believe the burglar was probably inside as they drove in the driveway.

But they mostly forgot about the stolen gun.

“Thirty-three years is a long time,” Richard Montague said. “We would not have even remembered the year it was stolen.”

Then Marge Montague answered a call from the sheriff department and the deputy asked, “Do you remember back 30 years ago?” He told them the rifle had been recovered and asked if they still wanted it.

They told the officer they did.

“We wanted to see it,” Richard Montague said, although he expected after so long the gun would be in bad shape.

“I am thinking ‘I hate to see what condition this was in,’ ” he said. “But it still looks as good today as it did then. Somebody had taken care of it.”

Other than a few scratches, they said, the gun looks nearly new and seems in flawless mechanical condition.

“I put some shells in it and and shot it and it’s accurate,” Richard Montague said. “It didn’t misfire.”

He is pleased to have the gun returned. It means something because his wife purchased it for him.

She recalls buying the semi-automatic at a store in Charlotte for about $100 and he said it’s probably worth $300 now.

Remington said about 1 million of the guns were made between 1959 and 1989.

“I was totally surprised,” Richard Montague said. “I hadn’t thought about it in years and we never expected to get it back.”

The recovery is similar to one in Battle Creek earlier this year when an antique Colt army revolver manufactured about 1891 was recovered after it was stolen in 1982 from the Bedford Township home of Gordon Miller, 74.

That gun was recovered after someone sold it to a gun shop in Kalamazoo and then the shop attempted to sell it to a customer and it was discovered to be stolen.

“It was just unbelievable,” Miller said when that gun was returned to him in January. “It was 32 years ago. That just doesn’t happen. I wonder what this has been through in 32 years.”

Contact Trace Christenson at 966-0685 or tchrist@battlecreekenquirer.com. Follow him on Twitter: @TSChristenson.