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from The Sideshow at Yahoo!News

Found: Lost camera reunited with owner after three years

A bagel shop, a purple door, and a street sign helped re-connect a lost camera with its owner after three long years.

John Noerr uncovered a soggy Cannon XT digital camera in a creek in upstate New York near his parents' home. The art educator from Poultney, Vt. realized that the memory card of the camera amazingly still worked, and with 581 photos, there could be enough information to track down the owner.

According to the Post-Star, the super-sleuth spent three weeks combing through the photos looking for clues to the owner.

After plenty of dead ends scrolling through hundreds of images, Noerr found two pictures he called the "Holy Grail." A woman sitting on a stoop in front of a purple door with the street number 327, and a shot of a sign: Third Street.

A random snap of a bagel shop helped lead the 39-year-old to conclude he was looking for someone in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. Using Google Maps for street views, he located the address. Tax records gave him a family name: Comeau.

A search on the Web led him to Twitter, where he sent a message to a woman that he might have found her camera. She responded that she hadn't lost a camera, but her brother did.

Noerr said, "There was a moment it could have belonged to any number of 7 billion people. Then, there was a moment when it belonged to just one."

That was one lucky Michael Comeau, who had dropped his camera on a bridge three years back while on a camping trip and had long since given up on ever recovering the gadget.

The photos included long-forgotten images, including some of now-deceased relatives. Comeau called the return of his camera "totally bizarre," adding, "I can't wait to get it back."