Konnon6, most people in this hobby look for old coins, relics, and jewelry, via fumble-fingers losses. Or if they do look for hidden caches, it's for the ones of by-gone times. I haven't heard of anyone looking for proceeds of modern crimes, but I suppose some might take the hobby in that direction. I have, on several occasions in my 30 yrs of this, been asked to help the police and others find stolen goods they believe were stashed on properties. But I never thought to actually go out and make it a point (without some certain tip or whatever) to hunt for those things, as it pertains to the hobby side of this.
Did the newspaper accounts of the story you alude to, say for certain that valuables were un-accounted for?
One time, I was metal detecting in San Jose, CA, when my friend and I were approached by a guy, who asked if we could help him find some jewelry he'd buried several years earlier, but had forgotten the exact site. We agreed to a specified reward, and followed him to a house in a blighted neighborhood. From there, he led us on a foot-path to some gullys behind this neighborhood. He pointed out the area, and we went to work. After 5 minutes, my friend hits it: A bunch of gold rings and jewelry buried in some type of cloth sack! The guy thanked us, and led us back to his house, to give us our reward. Once at the house, he dumped the contents of the sack out on the table, and said "take your pick ...... your payment will be 1 item each, of your choice.". My friend and I sifted through the pile to make our pick. As I looked at various items, I could see all different type class rings, for example. Different years of graduation, male, female, diff. states, etc... We made our choice and got out of there...... because we were beginning to smell foul play. It was obvious this was all stolen stuff, and the guy must've buried it, but landed in the pokey, unable to return for several years.
The only reason I bring this up, is ...... in this case, you can see he buried it a clear block from his house. So, to hunt criminal's houses is a long crap-shoot, as there's no clear odds that 1) they even buried stuff to begin with, or 2) if they did, that they buried it at their house. Bear in mind, parole agents have the right to search parolees homes for any reason (a lot of criminals are parolees), so some put evidence far from them. I have also seen this in murder weapons I have recovered for the police: they were always stashed or disposed of far from the criminal's home.
