- Here are magnet fishing hauls everybody and nobody wants.
Not every fisherman is after a catch that swims and breathes through gills. Others chase a much colder and harder haul.
They are magnet fishing enthusiast. With strong magnets attached to long lines, they pull up forgotten metal from waterways.
Most of the time, their hauls end up being trash, like old shopping carts, twisted bicycles, and rusted-through pieces of sheet metal. Yet, every magnet fisher dreams of the day they’ll find something incredibly valuable — and sometimes they do.
Or they might pull up something they wished would’ve stayed underwater forever.
Two recent magnet fishing incidents fall squarely into the latter categories. In New York, a couple caught a safe containing $100,000 and will be allowed to keep the money, if they can get the rotting bills reconstructed.
In New Orleans, meanwhile, a magnet fisher pulled up a dumbbell — with a human skull chained to it. Together with the handgun he retrieved from the water, he may have stumbled upon an unsolved murder.
Let’s take a closer look at both cases.
Making It Rich — Maybe
On May 31, James Kane and Barbi Agostini were magnet fishing in the Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, New York. The couple discovered magnet fishing during the COVID-19 lockdowns and bought their first gear kit last year.
Since then, they’ve been trawling New York’s waterways. They like helping keep their city clean, but they also admit they’re always hoping to make it big.
“Through magnet fishing, you can get rich and clean the environment at the same time,” Kane told ABC 7.
Their dream of an environmentally friendly jackpot came true when they pulled up an old metal safe from Meadow Lake. The couple had salvaged safes before — but not ones that had $100,000 in cash inside them.
As soon Kane and Agostini discovered the money, they called the NYPD to report it. After all, it could be part of some shady business.
The cops, however, found no possible clues. The safe has no identifying features connecting it to any crime and the $100 bills are so badly deteriorated that you can barely tell what they are.
So, they’re allowing Kane and Agostini to keep the safe — and the money. It sounds great, but the couple can’t enjoy their riches just yet.
As we mentioned, the money is so decomposed that it can’t really come out of the safe.
“The money would deteriorate more with touch,” explained Agostini.
The couple is now working with the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., to try and rebuild the bills. They will never likely be usable, but perhaps the money experts can find serial numbers or identifiers that will allow Kane and Agostini to deposit the bills into their accounts digitally.
“It still doesn’t feel real,” Kane summarized his thoughts about the $100,000 haul.
A Gruesome Haul
A couple of weeks earlier, a magnet fisher in Louisiana also called the cops after seeing what his equipment had attached to. He, however, probably wished he never caught the object dangling from his magnet.
On May 18, the Bayou Boogaloo music festival was in full swing in New Orleans’ City Park. An unidentified man had also joined the fun, but he wasn’t listening to the bands.
Instead, he was magnet fishing in Bayou St. John by the park, off the bridge of Mirabeau Avenue. Suddenly, he felt his magnet attach to something and he pulled his catch up.
It was the barrel of a gun. A few throws later, he also caught a handgun a bit farther up the bridge.
That might’ve already been enough fishing for some. The man, however, continued until his magnet hooked to a new catch.
It was a 15-pound dumbbell. Around it was tied a piece of cloth, which was padlocked to a human skull.
Needless to say, the man called the police right away. However, they may have a hard time finding out who the skull belonged to.
According to the New Orleans Police Department, the skull is “fully decomposed, lacking a jaw or the top row of teeth.” As such, retrieving dental records is out of the question.
The cops also stated that they weren’t aware of any unsolved cases of decapitation. That said, it’s possible the rest of the corpse may have broken off the skull as it decayed and been washed farther downriver.
For now, the NOPD says it’s investigating and welcomes any possible tips from the public. Meanwhile, forensics experts are hard at work trying to discover the identity of the skull’s owner.