best friend.d he followed me m arounde like a puppy. helped me carry dry wall to a construction site. he sat on the beach with my children while my wife and i d a went surfing.w he kept asking can i see the artifacts? ed finally fam agrees to shoh pritchard what s inside that old family suitcase. the next few hours are a revelation for ed. that old cap is called a keppie and it was worn a by general , pickett at gettysburg. there s his bloodstained uniform sleeve, personal letters, photos, his military sash and wn this, pickett s own hand-drawn map of the gettysburg battlefield. he was very knowledgeable, he no what everything was. a tell me about the reaction oo was pritchard s face. n he was delighted. it s like he found a gold mine and he said i m prepared on behalf of the mayor to make you an offer. nder who did you feel he represented? your interests or the museum s
the civil war collecting world m rumors spread that a metal case full of general pickett epte artifacts is still in the family s possession in north m carolina. in september, 1995, ed gets a call from a guy named russell h pritchard in philadelphia. pritchard says he s an antiquesa appraiser looking for artifacts to buy for a new civil war ndof museum being built in be harrisburg, pennsylvania. i was a little bit standoffish because i didn t believe him. may a few weeks later, a letter p arrives. i had ard letter from the mau of harrisburg. saying?isburg. russ pritchard is the official representative of the d national civil war museum in the city of harrisburg. did you get a letter from thj mayor because you asked for credentials?ng you no. it just arrived. that s exactly right. next thing you know, us are pritchard arrives uninvited in wilmington and boy is he persistent. he wanted to be my new new
interests? as i understood it, he was an appraiser standing if the stimat middle. that s what he said. the a that he could not overestimate s or underestimate the value of it. russ comes up with an offer to buy most of the context of the case $87,500. he now it s ed who thinks he s struck gold. i thought, wow, $87,500 is ai lot of money to me. . did it look fair? he seemed fair to me. a it was more money than i d ever gotten in my life. . depa ed happily accepts ed happily accepts and signs away the items. pritchard immediately departs g with the pickett artifacts. his with the pickett artifacts. his great-great grandson is in for the shock of his life when he. finds out what eventually e happens to his family heirlooms. all lies. he just lied to me completely.ow that s next. r but alsfirst, our strange inheritance quiz question.
paid pritchard for the items. how much did they pay? they paid over $800,000. your reaction? i was astounded. i realized something was really wrong. then another shocker. he learns pritchard flat out stole some items, including family photos he kindly offered to restore for ed. russ pritchard told me he d be glad to frame them for me and send them back no charge. no charge. he was just going to do it because he was a nice guy. wondering what they could be worth, ed takes them the highly regarded gettysburg antique store the horse soldier. . he looks at the photograph and says these are not real photographs, they re laser copies. upon closer examination, ed can see the lines from the laser printer. pritchard had reframed his photos with fakes. ed s embarrassment over making
gettysburg. ed heads to a jury trial and is awarded $850,000. ed is thrilled at first. i received a jury verdict against russ pritchard for $800,000, of which i do not receive $800,000 because russ pritchard suddenly had empty pockets. i got $250,000 of which my attorney took his cut of the cash. how much? close to $100,000. but the law isn t done with russ pritchard yet. fbi agent robert whitman is paying very close attention as the case is playing out in court. he was very smooth, he dressed well, he was very glib of tongue. it turns out pritchard and his partners had been running the same kind of scam on others who had civil war artifacts. usually ten times was what they were selling material for after they appraised it for