Fredericksburg Police Dept. got an unlikely break in a 2017 investigation.

The Rappahannock Canal was drained recently, and on April 27, a firearm was uncovered in the drained section, FPD said.

The gun was rusted, heavily damaged, and the serial number was “deliberately obliterated.” Detectives Mejia and Dobson went to work examining the gun and used advanced restoration techniques to recover the serial number.

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Doing so allowed them to link the gun to a 2017 case that Meija leads. The irony, according to FDP, is Meija drained the same section of the canal 8 years ago looking for the gun in the early stages of the investigation.

FPD has not disclosed which case this discovery is linked to.