Our People
22 July, 2025
Coincidences and pure luck sees return of Olympic memorabilia
THE story of Buangor Primary School’s own globetrotting basketball star Natalie Hughes losing all her Olympic basketball memorabilia took a positive turn last week when some good old-fashioned police work - along with the help of a kind local resident - uncovered her priceless prized possessions.
Natalie got a call out-of-the blue from Senior Constable Sam van Duttgerun at Avoca Police, asking if she’d had anything stolen recently and explained he and Leading Senior Constable Dale Harrison had found a box containing a letter with her name on it.
“It was a 30-year-old letter that I had sent to my mother, and I always signed my name ‘Natalie Hughes’ like a lunatic,” she said with a chuckle, recalling her autograph habits back when she was a prodigious young basketball talent.
“Dale was the one who said he’d seen my name and heard about losing my stuff, so he’s Googled me and put two-and-two together and realised yep, she’s got stuff stolen.”
“They went out of their way to drive this box down to us here in Buangor, and it was mostly my mum’s stuff coz she had things in the shipping container as well, so it was like CDs and a book, and whole bunch of photographs, 70-years-old some of them, and they said the box was found under a stolen car.”
According to Natalie, Avoca Police took the box while the stolen car ended up with Maryborough Police and in the coming days, she was shown photos of items that had been recovered from the police operation, but she was deflated because the red gym bags that had contained her priceless basketball career memorabilia didn’t appear in any of the pictures.
“We were like, yep that’s ours, that’s ours too but no red bags to be seen,” she said.
“So I told them again about the red bags, and we also sent some photos through.”
Surprised and grateful to have a few of her things back and relieved police had tracked down the alleged crooks, Natalie was having a good day but what happened next had her jumping out of her skin with excitement.
“That night, Gabrielle Brennan who lives not far from us, had picked up her car from Maryborough, it was her car that had been stolen,” said Natalie.
Gabrielle had extraordinary news to share with Natalie, it turned out that she had found the red bags containing all the precious mementos from Natalie’s sporting career.
“They rang me and told me they found the car,” Gabrielle said about a call she received from Maryborough Police.
“But it was locked, and they didn’t have the key.”
“When the car was released to me, I discovered all this stuff in the back of it and I took it to the police in Maryborough who were very kind and took it out, and that’s when I realised it was Natalie’s stuff, at least some of it anyway, because I knew she’d lost her Olympic gear.”
Gabrielle explained to the Maryborough Police officers what the items appeared to be, and then tracked down a phone number for Paul, Natalie’s partner to share the incredible news that she’d just found Natalie’s prized possessions.
For Natalie, the news came as the most delightful surprise.
“She called Paul and said ‘look, I’ve just picked up my car that had been stolen’ and that when she drove off there was a whole bunch of things in there that weren’t hers,” Natalie said.
“So she turned around and gave them back to Maryborough Police and said ‘they’re not my stuff’ and when they were pulling things out, she noticed the red bags and said ‘I know who they belong to’ and then about two minutes after she got off the phone, Maryborough Police called and basically said the same thing.
“Then the Avoca Police, Dale and Sam, legends they are, went and picked up all the stuff from Maryborough and drove it all down here, hand delivered it, which was unreal, I couldn’t believe they’d do that, it was really good of them.”
Natalie expressed immense gratitude for Gabrielle’s integral role in the return of her basketball career memorabilia.
“Gabrielle, if it wasn’t for her, my stuff could have still been missing,” she said.
“And the community helped as well, knowing and hearing and seeing, talking and helping each other out, it’s pretty cool.
“I’m very, very lucky, it’s like this huge surprise.”
Natalie estimate’s her and Paul have gotten back just under half of the things that were originally stolen from their shipping container, with furniture and appliances making up the bulk of what wasn’t recovered.
And as for Gabrielle, she was surprised Maryborough Police had let her car out of captivity without conducting a search, and glad to have played a role in the return of Natalie’s gear.
“It was so amazingly lucky that those idiots who stole both of our possessions happened to bring them together because I think Natalie’s stuff was stolen quite a bit before my car was stolen, so they’re stupid basically but, good on them for being stupid,” she said.