Retired police Detective Terrence Mulligan\u00a0had given up all hope that\u00a0he\u2019d\u00a0ever\u00a0see his dad\u2019s NYPD gold retirement ring after it was stolen from the family\u2019s Staten Island home over 40 years ago.<\/p>\n
But the so-called \u201cshield ring\u201d \u2014 engraved with his father\u2019s badge number \u2014 shockingly made it back home last week thanks to a detective, a stranger from Boston and some pure luck.<\/p>\n
The retirement rings, which are engraved with the word \u201cdetective\u201d and \u201cNYPD,\u201d sell for up to $2,000 to $2,500 \u2014 but are worth much more to the proud fraternity.<\/p>\n
Retired Detective Terrance Mulligan never thought he\u2019d see his detective dad\u2019s gold NYPD ring again after it was stolen when he was a boy. Leonardo Munoz<\/p>\n
Mulligan, 53, was only 8 when his dad, retired Detective Joe Mulligan, had his ring stolen. He and his seven siblings bought a replacement ring for $1,500 ring for their dad in 2010, seven years before he died \u2014 never thinking they\u2019d see the original again. <\/p>\n
That is until a kind-hearted stranger would found it lying on a Boston street last year.<\/p>\n
Leona Mizer was out running daily chores when she spotted the gold ring in a metered parking spot on Beantown\u2019s famed Beacon Street in the summer of 2024, her husband Kelly Mizer said.<\/p>\n
Mulligan and his wife Meredith were happy to get his dad\u2019s ring back after a stranger discovered it on a Boston street. Leonardo Munoz<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was going to the grocery store there and she found this gold ring lying on the ground,\u201d he said. \u201cI was like \u2018I wish there was a way to get it back to the owner, but how do you do that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, he simply dropped the\u00a0ring \u2013 which had the elder\u00a0Mulligan\u2019s shield\u00a0number 1741\u00a0engraved on it \u2013 in his drawer and carried on with life. <\/p>\n
The Mizers didn\u2019t think much about it until they moved to Maine recently with their two kids.<\/p>\n
Mulligan\u2019s dad, Joe, passed away in 2017, and his mom Grace is about to turn 89. Leonardo Munoz<\/p>\n
\u201cAmidst moving and unpacking, we found the ring again,\u201d\u00a0Kelly Mizer\u00a0said. \u201cAnd I just had this idea,\u00a0\u2018Maybe it\u2019s a badge number.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
So he googled NYPD and the badge number\u00a01741\u00a0and eventually came across Detective James Zozzaro.\u00a0Then, he was able to locate the\u00a0gumshoe\u2019s number and called him.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first, he thought it was a joke,\u201d Kelly Mizer recalled. \u201cI sent him a picture of the ring.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ring was stolen from the family\u2019s home in Staten Island four decades ago. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n
Each NYPD shield number is passed down to a new cop when a detective retires.<\/p>\n
Kelly Mizer\u00a0mailed the ring to Zozzaro at the 107 Precinct in Queens \u2014 and the detective picked up the search and did some sleuthing\u00a0of his own\u00a0to find its rightful owner.<\/p>\n
While researching the five officers who had the shield number before him,\u00a0Zozzaro\u00a0learned\u00a0that Joe Mulligan had a daughter who once lived in Boston.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe got a cell phone number for my sister because she had a place in Boston at one time, and he figured, \u00a0\u2018Okay, Massachusetts, maybe she dropped the ring,\u2019\u201d Terrence Mulligan\u00a0told The Post.<\/p>\n
But his sister\u00a0thought the call was a scam.<\/p>\n
The Mizers searched online for the shield number and found Detective James Zozzaro, who has it now.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe doesn\u2019t trust anybody,\u201d he joked. \u201cShe didn\u2019t believe it. She\u2019s like, \u2018I\u2019m not talking to you. I\u2019m not giving you any information. I just don\u2019t know who you are.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She offered to have her brother call the detective instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cJames was so nice,\u201d Terrence Mulligan said. \u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018Yep, tell your brother to call me.\u2019 And I did. He told me this crazy story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zozzaro researched and found the Mulligans. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n
Mulligan and his wife drove from their Sparta, New Jersey, home to the city to\u00a0recover the ring on Nov. 13 \u2014 happy the heirloom\u00a0was home again.<\/p>\n
Mulligan and his seven siblings\u00a0were planning to give the ring to their mom at a dinner for her 89th birthday next month, but didn\u2019t think they could wait that long.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a crazy story,\u201d Mulligan said. \u201cSomebody could have just hocked it. It\u2019s just good people in the world, you know, they reached out to James and I give James all the credit in the world. <\/p>\n
Mulligan drove to Queens to pick up the ring at the NYPD\u2019s 107 Precinct station. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cMy family is sideways right now. They can\u2019t believe it, you know, really grateful. Wow.\u201d<\/p>\n
But\u00a0one\u00a0mystery remains.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess what\u2019s baffled everyone is how did the ring make it from New York all the way up to Boston lying on the street,\u201d Kelly Mizer said.<\/p>\n
The union that represents NYPD detectives lauded the gumshoe for his efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the kind of quiet, honorable act that defines NYPD detectives,\u201d Detectives Endowment Association President Scott Munro said in a statement. \u201cA detective went out of his way to return a cherished heirloom that had been missing for decades \u2014 not for recognition, but because it was the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retired police Detective Terrence Mulligan\u00a0had given up all hope that\u00a0he\u2019d\u00a0ever\u00a0see his dad\u2019s NYPD gold retirement ring after it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27758,19716,57,9,11,10,103,797,58],"class_list":["post-49348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-detectives","tag-generations","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-nypd","tag-theft","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}