Amanda McKiverkin, 15, of Washington had just come back from relaxing on the beach with friends and family in Harvey Cedars Thursday afternoon, Aug. 21, when she noticed her late mother’s engagement and blue topaz birthstone rings were missing. The jewelry, which belonged to Karen Damico, who died alongside McKiverkin’s stepfather, George Hew, in a motorcycle crash in New York last September, usually adorned McKiverkin’s neck on a silver chain. Before heading into the ocean while on vacation that day, McKiverkin said, she had wrapped the jewelry in a T-shirt and left it near her towel.
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| Photo by Amanda McKiverkin Amanda McKiverkin is happy to have her mother's rings back; she keeps them around her neck on a silver chain. |
The pain of losing a parent at a young age as well as an intimate possession of that loved one is something Jimmy Schroeder, 38, knows all too well. A mechanic at the Harvey Cedars Borough yard who also lost his father at age 14, Schroeder said he was especially fond of his dad’s work hat, a ball cap he once received from a salesman at Conway Auto Parts in Manahawkin. The hat was given to Schroeder’s sister, and it was eventually lost. When he heard McKiverkin’s story, he said he wanted to help her find the jewelry.
“If I wouldn’t have looked for it, it probably would have bothered me deeply,” Schroeder said. “I just did it. It’s the right thing to do. If you see someone broken down on the side of the road in a snowstorm, you stop and help them. It’s just something you do.
“I know what it feels like to lose a parent,” he added. “I know what kind of meaning those little artifacts or possessions have. Like my dad’s hat; it still bothers me to this day that I don’t have it. It’s gone. Who knows where it went?”
Although McKiverkin’s friends and family tore apart the rental house and sifted through the sand in search of the rings that afternoon, they ultimately came up empty-handed.
“I felt sick to my stomach. My head was pounding,” McKiverkin said. “It was to the point where I could not walk. I had to lay down, and eventually I passed out on my bed, crying.”
The jewelry was reported lost to the local police the following morning. Steve Hew, McKiverkin’s uncle, and Scott Cale, a family friend, checked at the trash bins at the borough yard, which contained debris from the previous night’s beach cleaning. Harvey Cedars Patrol Officer Anthony Abbatemarco, who handled the case, said he even sifted through the beach himself and called around to other local departments. However, the jewelry, which was reported to be worth around $8,500, was nowhere to be found.
“She didn’t even care about the price. She just wanted it for the sentimental value,” Abbatemarco said.
McKiverkin’s mother and biological father, Kevin McKiverkin, divorced when Amanda McKiverkin was just 2 years old. Growing up without a full-time father, McKiverkin said, bolstered a special bond between her and her mother. The two were best friends, and they spent many summers visiting Long Beach Island. Damico had hoped to buy a place on LBI and eventually retire there, McKiverkin said.
Although the family thought Damico was wearing the rings during the fatal crash, the jewelry later turned up with her belongings at home. McKiverkin’s older brothers, Christopher and Michael Damico, insisted their sister keep them, she said.
“I don’t usually wear rings on my hands, so I put them on a necklace so I would always have them with me,” said McKiverkin.
When the last of the debris arrived at the borough yard that day, Schroeder, still perturbed by the young girl’s story, took his 15-minute break to search for the jewelry.
“I saw the necklace come across the debris. I bent down and sifted through it a little more because I saw something funny, and I found it, and I pulled it up, and there it was,” Schroeder said. “Everybody was amazed. It was a weird feeling I got. I was so happy to find it.
“By some coincidence, the beach cleaner got it and did not destroy it,” he added. “I can’t believe it didn’t wreck it. It was still in one piece. The necklace didn’t break; it was still together, and I was able to find it.”
Abbatemarco, who happened to be in the yard at the time, immediately took Schroeder over to the family’s house so he could return it.
“I thought he was kidding, but he (found it),” said Abbatemarco. “There it was. He picked it right up out of there.”
Though McKiverkin said she does not usually have good luck, she said she knew the rings had finally been found when she came downstairs and saw the telling smile spread across her uncle’s face, who had answered the door when the police car showed up.
“I grabbed them and gave him (Schroeder) the biggest hug I could,” she said.
Emotions ran high for the moment, and although the family tried to offer Schroeder a reward, he said he did not want it.
“I didn’t accept anything because there’s nothing they could have given me to make me feel any better than I was feeling at the moment,” Schroeder said. “Contrary to belief, I have a soft heart. Fifteen minutes of my life doesn’t usually make a difference to anybody, but that particular day I was able to make a huge difference to that family. It’s a really good feeling, kind of like the day your kids are born. It’s one of those things that really makes you feel good.”
Schroeder claimed he had been feeling down lately and said finding the jewelry really lifted his spirits.
McKiverkin had wanted to bring part of her mother’s ashes to LBI but said she had not thought of it in time. Losing her mother’s rings at the shore, although devastating, would not have been the worst thing to have happened, she said. However, she is much happier to have the jewelry.
“I’m grateful that I have them, but I would be OK if I didn’t because I know LBI was a big part of our bond,” McKiverkin said. “If her rings were down there, I would have been absolutely OK with that because at least a part of her would be down in LBI. I’m grateful that I have them, though, because I can take a piece of her with me every day.
“I think that it was mostly my mother because sometimes I feel like she’s not there, and I think this was her way of showing me that she is still here,” she added. “I’m just extremely grateful because I do know that Jimmy had lost his father, as he mentioned, and I’m just so grateful that he has such a kind heart about this.”
— Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The SandPaper.
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