An Iowa military widow and her daughter rejoiced over the July 4 weekend as a valued item was returned to them after it had gone missing for three years due to theft.

Darlene Squire had thought her statue of a concrete soldier kneeling before a cross was gone for good after it was stolen in 2019.

Her daughter, Melissa, reached out to local news outlet KETV 7 in 2019, hoping it would lead to someone coming forward and returning the statue. Nothing came of it, then.

Fast forward to late June 2022 when a man, who wishes to remain unidentified, noticed something suspicious going on near his home at a middle school construction site in Omaha, Nebraska.

As he witnessed a group of people allegedly going through the site at 2:15 a.m., he called 911, and three suspects were arrested for theft by the Omaha police, KETV 7 reported.

After the three suspects abandoned their U-Haul amid the incident, the man who called the authorities decided to meander through the pickup.

While searching, he found the statue of the soldier and posted it on Facebook, hoping someone would recognize it.

It did not take long for others on social media to recognize it, and the good Samaritan emailed the reporter at KETV 7, who did the original report of the missing statue in 2019. He wished for the reporter to bring the statue to the Squires and not him.

The reporter crossed the Missouri River to Council Bluffs, Iowa, to bring back the statue to the Squires. Initially, the family did not believe the statue was hers.

Melissa then checked through video footage of the statue from years ago, to which she exclaimed, “It is yours, Mom! I just have to touch it up a bit but that is totally yours!”

Both Melissa and Darlene were thankful for the good Samaritan who found the statue.

The statue had some damage, but Melissa had a unique perspective on their returned possession.

“The cross has been dinged up, he’s lost a finger. I know it sounds weird but I think it’s kind of near symbolism, our soldiers don’t come back perfect,” she said.

While it has not been determined that the three suspects who were arrested were the culprits for the stolen statue, the Squire family suggests that if convicted by a court, the judge should require them to visit a Veteran Affairs Hospital.

“I want them to see what these soldiers go through,” Melissa said.

You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.