When North Little Rock police pulled over a man with a record of narcotics violations Jan. 3, they suspected he was hiding something.
Officers conducted a search and reported that James Henderson, 41, had several baggies of marijuana in his pocket and his license had been suspended. A passenger, Dustin Price, 18, also purportedly had marijuana, and there were syringes and a digital scale between the driver's seat and center console.
Police said the contraband wasn't unique, in kind or quantity. But something else in the vehicle was.
Under the front passenger seat, police found a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver -- known as a .38 Special -- that had been reported stolen 48 years ago in New York City. Police said no one in the vehicle claimed ownership of the weapon, much less spoke to how it was obtained. But Price was charged with possessing the wood-handle, carbon steel six-shooter.
Local authorities said they'll likely never know how the revolver ended up in Price's hands after it disappeared more than 1,200 miles away in 1967. Figuring out where the weapon may have been and who else possessed it during that time is probably impossible, said Grover Crossland, the head agent of the Little Rock office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The average time between a gun's sale and its recovery in a crime is slightly more than 11 years, according to the ATF. Even in that timeframe, a gun can change hands between countless people through private transactions -- or theft -- without being documented.
A stolen gun recovered after nearly five decades on the streets is unheard of, Crossland said.
"I've been doing this for 25 years and I've never seen one turn up after that long. Not even close," he said.
North Little Rock police said the street value of a stolen gun can't be determined. Sometimes a gun is traded for drugs and other illicit items. If a gun is sold for cash, it's typically a fraction of retail price.
Police spokesman officer Carmen Helton said the department will keep the revolver as evidence until Price's case is resolved. The department, which determined the revolver was stolen by checking its serial number in the National Crime Information Center, is not obligated to contact its owner or report its recovery to federal authorities.
"The only thing we're going to do is contact [the New York Police Department] and let them know we found it. I'm sure since it was stolen back in the 1960s, I don't know how easy it would be contact the owner. I'm sure his information has changed since then," Helton said.
A police report identified the gun's owner as Franklin Holmes of Rego Park, a traditionally Jewish middle-class neighborhood in Queens. The report lists an address for Holmes at an apartment on Woodhaven Boulevard, a central roadway of the borough. Efforts by the Democrat-Gazette to contact Holmes and his relatives were unsuccessful.
Smith & Wesson advertises the revolver, a Model 10, as one of the most famous and collectible it has produced. The company has reportedly manufactured more than 6 million since 1899.
It was a service weapon of the American military in the Persian Gulf, Vietnam, Korean wars, and World Wars I and II. With its 4-inch barrel and half-moon sight, it was also the standard firearm of police departments across the world in the 20th century -- including New York police.
The Model 10 was the standard weapon of the New York Police Department from 1926 to 1986, a period when many American police departments allowed officers to use personal firearms on the job -- provided they were registered with the department.
Spokesmen for the New York Police Department referred questions about the gun and its disappearance to its Freedom of Information Law Unit. The unit, which only accepts hard copy requests, hadn't responded to an inquiry by the Democrat-Gazette by press time.
Helton said if the New York Police Department can't contact the gun's owner, it will be destroyed when Price's case is finished.
Price and Henderson did not respond to calls seeking comment.
The ATF reported that 2,941 stolen or missing firearms from 37 states were recovered in Arkansas in 2013, the last year such data were available.
Only one of those guns came from New York.
More than 46 percent of guns recovered in Arkansas that year had gone missing inside the state. The most guns from outside the state, 94, came from Texas, which annually leads the category.
Arkansas does not require gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms.
Metro on 01/19/2015