Laurens Co. officer finds box of jewelry

Sgt. James Kimbrell finds box of jewelry.

LAURENS COUNTY, SC Most of his life, in some way, Sgt. James Kimbrell has served others.

"I started with the highway patrol back on August 13 1967," Kimbrell said.

He worked in a specialized unit, retired, and then put the badge on again as

Sergeant with the Criminal Investigations Unit with the Laurens County

Sheriff's Office under Sheriff Don Reynolds.

"When we first took office back in January 3 of 2017. SLED was still doing

their initial inventory. They thought it would take just several weeks," Kimbrell


He now has the keys to the old jail where at one time, piles of evidence and

items related to cases, which dated back to the 90s filled several rooms.

"Body armor was piled up, old computers and laptops and monitors, slot

machines," Kimbrell said.

He's gone through a lot of it, but one box with a case number caught his eyes.

"It hadn't been returned to SLED so I opened it up and looked inside and saw

there were jewelry items in there," Kimbrell said."Someone had noted back in

December of 1995 a notation that these people had come by the sheriff's

department, but the items had been lost."

He did some more digging and found a report, a name, and a number.

"One thing I noticed in the box was a class ring," Kimbrell said.

He called the owners and told them about the box.

"They had a burglary at their residence where there was - firearms were

stolen and also quite a few items of jewelry," Kimbrell said."Me and my

lieutenant went out after hours and personally delivered it to these


Now, as the sergeant continues to find items he tracks and assigns serial

numbers and returns them to owners if he can.

"Makes me a feel real good that I'm able to give things back to the citizens of

Laurens County," Kimbrell said.


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