When you become a victim of theft, there’s a good chance you’ll never see those belongings again.
Most criminals are smart enough to make off with your items and sell them far away from wherever they stole them from.
You wouldn’t expect to come across them even a few years down the line, let alone over a decade!
So when Katy Ryan visited a bar in Dallas, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Right in front of her was a painting of her mother – and it was almost like she was seeing a ghost.
She was staring straight at a long-stolen family relic.
Back in 2006, Katy’s mom, Betsy Daniels, had her University Park home burglarized.
A painting of her teenage self was stolen, and Betsy assumed she’d never see it again.
Although Betsy was devastated at the time, as the years passed, the painting was largely forgotten about.
That is until Katy went to meet friends at Bowen House in Uptown.
It took Katy a while to take in the artwork on the walls, but when she started paying attention she realized something remarkable, and almost impossible to believe.
Speaking to CBS DFW, Katy recalled the moment she spotted the painting, saying:
“That is my mother; that is our painting. Why is it on the wall here at the Bowen House? It’s almost like if I saw a ghost or something.”
Katy was in disbelief and needed answers.
She approached the bar manager and told him that the painting belonged to her mother.
As proof, she showed him a photo of her stepfather standing in front of it before it was stolen.
It turned out Bowen House bought the painting from an antique store earlier that year.
The bar is packed with old photos and paintings, many of which have come from the same store.
While the painting of Betsy had no true monetary value, the owner of Bowen House could understand its personal value, and agreed to return it to its rightful owners.
Katy and her mom could hardly believe it, they thought they’d never see the painting again.
Talking about the moment the pair were reunited with the relic, Katy said:
“The sequence of events, the stars aligned, I don’t know what it was.”
Daniel Alqassen, the manager of Bowen House, has decided to honor the painting and the story behind it. He said:
“We are actually going to get coasters made of that painting because we just loved it. We want to kind of keep that story alive and kind of tell people about it.”
It’s certainly a remarkable story – and the chances of Katy stumbling across the painting are so slim.
It almost does seem like a work of fate.
Not only did the family get their priceless painting back – but they’ll always be able to retell the details of how it disappeared, then was found years later…in a bar.
What are the odds?
Watch the video below to get a closer look at this unbelievable story!
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