Advertisement

Viral photos help return lost wedding ring to rightful owner

A photo of Martin Castillo's wedding ring, posted by Daniel Roark on Facebook, that sparked a worldwide search for the owner.

Avid scuba diver Daniel Roark, 21, found a wedding ring off Playa del Carmen, Mexico, this September.

Determined to track down its rightful owner, he posted a photo of the found band on Facebook.

The Facebook post was shared more than 100,000 times, with more than 50 people claiming the ring was theirs.

"It’s been a huge burden in many ways," Roark, from Gloucester, Massachusetts, told BuzzFeed News. “After the ring post took off virally, I’ve been spending four to five hours a day responding to messages, following up emails, pursuing leads.”

On Saturday, he received a Facebook message from a woman who claimed to the cousin of a bride whose husband lost his ring while scuba-diving on his honeymoon in February 2013.

“When I first starting read it, I thought, ‘Yeah, right,’” Roark told BuzzFeed. “I was just thinking it was another person scamming me. I had read all this before.”

“But then I saw a photo from their wedding, and she sent a photo of the two matching rings together. It was starting to look like this was actually theirs, and I was starting to get a little shaky.”

Roark contacted the couple, Jessica Garza-Castillo and Martin Castillo of Nuevo Laredo in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The Castillos were able to verify the ring’s size, its inscription — the name “Jessica,” a wedding date, and an abbreviation for an Spanish saying meaning “You and I against the world” — and they even sent Roark a receipt from the jeweller where they bought the ring.

“There’s no question that this was definitely theirs,” Roark told the Boston Globe.

-

-

"I’m in shock a bit still that we’ve actually found them but it’s really cool,” Roark said.

Before the ring’s owner was located, Roark admitted to CBS Boston that he hoped it didn’t belong to “some angry spouse who tossed it into the ocean, saying this marriage is over!”

Fortunately, the story has a much happier ending than that.

“You have no idea what this means [to us],” Castillo said of being reunited with his ring.

"I feel very grateful," he told the Boston Globe. “I have no words.”