Century-old locket found in Pukekohe supermarket reunited with Thames owner after successful sleuthing

A man claimed the locket, which was lost for weeks, on behalf of his mother. Photo / Police

A century-old family heirloom is back with its “grateful” owner after a treasured locket found at an Auckland supermarket became the subject of a New Zealand-wide sleuthing effort.

Police said a woman discovered the gold locket, which had precious photographs inside, nearly two months ago at Woolworths in Pukekohe South and handed it in to Pukekohe Police Station.

“A woman had found the locket, which was engraved and had two images inside,” Senior Sergeant Jeremy Steedman said.

Police posted a photo of the “rose gold locket” on Facebook in the hope of tracking down the owner.

“Weeks went by and nothing,” Steedman said. “We were starting to lose hope that someone would claim it, until last week when we were visited by Cameron out of the blue.”

Cameron told police his mother, Merle Brett, had lost her locket and was able to provide a detailed description of the piece, including the photographs inside.

“That locket has been in our family a long time and belonged to my mother-in-law,” he said.

“The pictures on the inside are my mother-in-law and my father-in-law and it’s a very sentimental piece of jewellery.”

Brett, who lives in Thames, lost the locket when she was on her way to a 90th birthday in South Auckland, having stopped by the supermarket.

“I didn’t realise it was gone until I was back home, I was so brassed off.”

She contacted her daughter, who lives in Nelson, to help keep an eye out on social media on lost and found pages.

“On Sunday my daughter called me and said, ‘mum, I think I’ve found it’. She saw the image from the police Facebook post and thought, ‘what are the chances two lockets were lost in the same place’?”

Brett said it’s “wonderful” to have her sentimental heirloom back.

“I’m just so grateful to the person who found it and handed it in – thank you.”