LOST

The owner of a condo at the Anchorage, on the East End of St. Thomas, says he rented the unit to a group of mainland fishermen spending a week here for the annual marlin tournament. After they left, the maid found a fully loaded Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver under the mattress.

She turned it over to the condo owner, who called the police for advice about what to do with it.

A policeman came to the condo, wrote out a receipt and said the police would keep the gun safe. He also said that if nobody came forward during the next six months to claim the gun, the condo owner could claim it.

Six months later, the condo owner went down to the police station, handed over his receipt and asked for the gun. The police couldn't find it.

That was seven years ago. The police still haven't found it.

AND FOUND

"We had to get the police chief (Raymond L. Hyndman) himself involved before the gun was found. They couldn't find the gun, and this was a guy ('Sebo' Smalls) the police wanted off the streets." --Valerie Collanton, former Assistant Attorney General.

-- BUT RARELY

One leading prosecutor in the Attorney General's Office, who asked not to be named for fear of professional reprisals, called the evidence room:

A black hole into which evidence disappears and rarely returns.