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PROVO — A Provo man has found the owner of some old home videos he discovered after purchasing a camcorder from a thrift store.
The video, which showed family members at a wedding in Utah County in 2005, was stored on an old MiniDV tape inside a camera which Danny Wilson recently bought at Savers.
Wilson didn't know who it belonged to, but figured someone might want it back. He reached out to KSL-TV to talk about it, hoping someone who could help would see the story.
Within hours of the story airing Thursday, Wilson heard from both Patrick Smith and Sabrina Yardley — the two people featured in the wedding video.
Yardley said her mom called her after seeing the news story.
"My grandma just recently passed away, and we were cleaning her house out, and we took a bunch of stuff to Savers," Yardley said. "I didn't even think to check that camera, and I didn't even know the video existed, actually."
Even though she and Smith are no longer married, she said the memories on those videos are precious. Her grandpa was filming, and the voice of her late grandma can be heard on it, too.
Yardley said it was "very generous" of Wilson to try to reunite the videos with their rightful owner.
"I think most people would have just thrown that tape away," she said.
For Wilson's part, he was just happy to help. Now that he knows who they are, he plans to send both Yardley and Smith a digitized version of the tape.
"I know that if someone found some of my old tapes," he said, "I'd be thrilled to see them again."
