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Beloved watch regained |
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Valued at $9,000, the antique watch was worth much more than money to Margaret Wood. Her longtime husband had survived multiple heart attacks when he bought the gold timepiece in the summer of 1986, encrusted it with an array of diamonds and surprised her with it at work. Six months later, he suffered another heart attack and died. More than two decades after losing her husband, Wood, 71, nearly lost his final gift. The Texarkana widow traveled to San Antonio this month to celebrate the birth of a grandson named after her husband, but during her stay at a Quality Inn & Suites, the timepiece vanished from a bedside table. Police last week traced it to a local pawnshop, where they recovered it and confirmed the identity of the woman who sold it — a former housekeeper at the hotel who quit her job the same day the watch disappeared, according to a police affidavit. Martha Sandoval, 50, was arrested Friday and charged with theft from an elderly person. According to court records, Sandoval had been arrested in 1991 on a felony charge of welfare fraud. She remained without bond at Bexar County Jail on Saturday. |
 (Thao Nguyen/Express-News) Walker Wood, son of Margaret Wood, holds his mother's 14-carat gold watch, encrusted with diamonds, which was presented to her after 31 years of marriage. |
| Wood's son
retrieved the cherished timepiece from police Friday. "I absolutely
couldn't sleep last night, I was so excited," Wood said Saturday. San Antonio police
"were amazing. They
have thousands and thousands of cases, and they got busy and found my watch. It
says a lot for San Antonio."
Housekeepers helped Wood move to a different room during her stay at the Quality Inn & Suites in the 9500 block of Brimhall on June 8. Wood said that a few hours after she'd settled into the new room, she realized she'd left the watch behind. When she returned to the room the watch was gone. A member of the hotel staff told Wood a housekeeper named "Martha" who'd helped her change rooms had quit the same day, but otherwise the staff was unhelpful, the affidavit said. So the widow went to police. "I was devastated," she said. "It just ruined my trip. I just cried and cried." A police detective went to the hotel Wednesday and spoke with members of the hotel staff about Sandoval. "They refused to provide me with any information regarding any of their employees and insisted that (Wood) had lost her watch and that no theft had occurred," the affidavit said. Rick Patel, the hotel's general manager who talked to the detective, denied insisting that Wood had lost the watch, but acknowledged he'd refused to provide information about Sandoval, even after the detective told him he had evidence against her. "I said, 'OK then, why don't you just arrest her?'" Patel said. The detective obtained a grand jury subpoena for Sandoval's employee file the next day and served it to the manager, who gave him the file. He then checked Sandoval's name in a pawnshop database and learned she'd sold a watch June 11, the affidavit said. Wood on Saturday said she was elated about the recovery of her husband's gift. "It was a beautiful marriage," she said. |
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