KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A vintage 1880s shotgun may have to be destroyed if police aren’t able to find its owner.
When Kansas City police recently went through recovered property from a burglary, they located a tan rifle case among the items recovered.
Inside the case was a shotgun from the C.G. Bonehill company from London. A KCPD detective researched the gun further and found it might have been made in the late 1800s or early 1900s.
Despite an engraving on the gun to a Will H. Cruttenden out of Cazenovia, New York, the detective has been unable to locate the owner of the gun.
Department policy states that if police aren’t able to locate the owner, they have to destroy the gun.
"It is a very beautiful shotgun; We're just trying to find an owner for it,” KCPD Det. Robert Martin said. “I'd hate to see it melted down or destroyed with it being such a nice piece of history and the history it has behind it."
