UPDATED PHOTOS: A Happy Ending To Missing Photos of Deceased Children

Don't you just love happy endings?

If you haven't heard, there's one playing out at Urbandale's Christian Photo this afternoon.

Connie Thomas, whose two toddlers were killed in a 1996 car accident, is getting back the last photos of her kids, taken a few days before the accident. 

Emily Price at KCCI.com reported the story first last week. 

Thomas, of Winterset, had taken the only negatives of the children's photos into Christian Photo in January to get reprints. The photos on the childrens' headstones were becoming faded.

"I told him about the accident and I said this is the last negative I have and the last original print, so please be very careful with it," Thomas told KCCI.com.

Three weeks later she went to pick them up and was told the photos had accidentally gone home with another customer. "Of course I immediately started crying hysterically," she said.

On Friday they were returned to her, and Thomas said she felt "overwhelming joy" to have them back, along with extra prints, a backup copy of the negatives on a CD and a bouquet of flowers.

As Brian Christian of the firm went through the package for her, he said, "It's over. I just want to check they're in there again."

She teared up as she hugged the Christians and thanked them for their efforts to return the negatives to her. Then hugged Jeremiah Terhark, the customer who was mistakenly given her negatives and brought them back.

Owner Relieved That Photos Were Retrieved

Dick Christian, owner of Christian Photo, said Friday that his business had taken some hits from KCCI readers who were critical of them for losing the negatives.

That criticism wasn't near what he and his son Brian were going through over the lost negatives, he said.

"I can you tell one thing. Last night is the first night I've been able to fall asleep since this happened, that I wasn't wondering and worrying for half and hour to an hour about what happened to the pictures, or what we did wrong." 
"I just fell asleep like a baby last night."

The story got picked up around Iowa and even by USA Today, Christian said. "I think we got more publicity than the vice president of China," he joked.

Story Picked Up Across the Country

Eventually that publicity paid off. 

Jeremiah Terhark of Urbandale said he returned them to Christian Photo Thursday after one of his colleagues asked him if he had heard about the story. Terhark finally made the connection that those were the photos that were mistakenly included with his order.

"My co-worker and employee was telling me about the sad story and I said, "Yeah, that can happen. I got someone else's photos with mine. Then slowly it began to dawn on me … Wait … Where was this at? … I drove them back that day."

Terhawk, who runs Urbandale Webspec Design, had been picking up some photos of his kids the third week in January and didn't notice until he got home that another envelope was stuck to his envelope.

He thinks the gum on the flaps stuck them together, noting that both he and Thomas' last names begin with T, so the envelopes probably were filed together.

He said called Christian Photo shortly after he first noticed the photos and said he would return them, but he didn't know the back story then. He surmises that the person he talked to didn't even know that Thomas' photos were missing at that point.

"I said I would try to stop by that weekend. I put them in my car and I got busy and forgot about it," he said.

"When I brought them in yesterday, they were pretty happy to see me. The guy ran up and hugged me — I think his name was Brian. He was tearing up. He looked like he was going to cry," said Terhawk. 

Ironically, Dick Christian said he and Terhawk are both in the Urbandale Chamber of Commerce together, although Christian said he didn't know Terhawk personally. And Terhawk's business is just down the street from Christian's.

Mother Doesn't Blame Business for Mishap

Thomas wrote on her Facebook page that despite the ordeal, she isn't angry with Christian Photo.

She wrote: "I am grateful the pictures are returned. I am not upset with Christian Photo at all. They were very kind and helpful. I understand that when someone calls and takes the time to tell them they will bring the pictures in, you think that they will do it in a timely fashion. Christian Photo is a wonderful company and I have since trusted them with my kids VHS tapes being transferred to DVD. TAKE YOUR BUSINESS TO CHRISTIAN PHOTO!"