Lost And Found: Camera Returns to Rightful Owner

Score one for viral media.

A Long Island woman who ended up with a stranger's digital camera used a little persistence and a lot of media savvy to get the device back to its rightful owner, Oak Park's Tom McGee.

Mary Ellen McFaul "mistakenly took the camera with her after snapping a victory shot of McGee and his son in the craziness following the Giants’ Feb. 5 win over the Patriots" at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, according to the New York Daily News.

Realizing she'd had someone else's camera and memories tucked away in her possession, McFaul began a campaign to set things straight. But who were the people in the photos?

She posted several of the photos in a YouTube video she created. She opened a special e-mail account for tips. She contacted some Chicago television stations. Bingo.

McGee reached out to McFaul in an email, (via an ABC news blog)

Hi: My son just left me a voicemail about seeing a piece on the local ABC Chicago news about a camera I lost @ the Super Bowl! I have been pulling my hair out trying to find it…calling the Lucas Stadium lost and found every day hoping it would turn up….and can’t believe this news! It’s a Samsung, silver digital. I’m out in California now for work, but have attached a photo of my son and I taken at the game…and I will bet it was you who took it w/my cell phone, b/c the camera photos kept coming out too dark :)

My name is Tom McGee, I live in Oak Park, IL.

McFaul will reportedly meet up with one of McGee's other sons in New York, and he'll deliver the camera back to his father where it belongs.

“I am so happy,” McFaul told the Daily News. “I had tears in my eyes when I got the email and realized I had found the owner.”