Photo Clues Lead to Camera's Owner

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Brian Ascher and his fiance Erika Gunderson pose for a photograph in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008, in Standings, an East Village bar which was the last piece in a puzzle to track down the owner of a Canon digital camera Gunderson found in a New York taxi on New Year's Eve. The couple tracked down the camera's owner in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens) (Kathy Willens - AP)

This photo provided by Alan Murphy shows him posing for a photo with his niece Sarah O'Sullivan on Dec. 20, 2007, in Florida. Erika Gunderson found Murphy's camera in a New York City taxi cab on New Year's Eve. Using clues from photos and video stored on the camera, Brian Ascher, Gunderson's fiance, was able to track down Murphy in Sydney, Australia and return his camera to him. (AP Photo/Alan Murphy) (Alan Murphy - AP)

In a photo provided by Alan Murphy, Dan Humprey and Jeanette Casey pose in front of Standings, a bar in the East Village neighborhood of New York, on Dec. 30, 2007. Erika Gunderson found Murphy's camera in a New York City taxi cab on New Year's Eve. Using clues from photos and video stored on the camera, Gunderson's fiance, Brian Ascher, was able to track down Murphy in Sydney, Australia and return his camera to him. ( (AP Photo/Alan Murphy) (Alan Murphy - AP)

In a photo provided by Alan Murphy, a "No Loud Talking Allowed" sign inside Burp Castle, a bar in the East Village neighborhood of New York, is seen on Dec. 30, 2007. Erika Gunderson found Murphy's camera in a New York City taxi cab on New Year's Eve. Using clues from photos and video stored on the camera, Gunderson's fiance, Brian Ascher, was able to track down Murphy in Sydney, Australia and return his camera to him. ( (AP Photo/Alan Murphy) (Alan Murphy - AP)

Brian Ascher and his fiance Erika Gunderson pose for a photograph in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008, in Burp Castle, an East Village bar which was a key piece in the puzzle of tracking down the owner of a Canon digital camera Gunderson found in a New York taxi on New Year's Eve. By matching the photographs stored in the camera with details in this bar and Standings, the bar next door, the couple tracked down the camera's owner in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens) (Kathy Willens - AP)

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Enter some fresh eyes. Ascher's mother, Nancy, and sister, Emily Rann, scoured the pictures for clues he might have missed. Nancy was particularly confident, having reunited people with their lost belongings before. She once found a California woman's wallet in a cab in Florence, Italy, and spent all day on her trail before making a handover at an American Express office.

"I thought, with all this data in the camera, there's no way we're not going to get it back to them," Nancy Ascher says now. "I was hoping it wasn't going to take a trip to Ireland, flashing their pictures everywhere."

Ascher's mother and his sister noticed that one of the pictures showed a doorman helping someone into a New York taxi. Zooming tight on the doorman's uniform, they made out the logo of the Radisson Hotel.

After several phone calls and a visit to the hotel to show the pictures around, Nancy Ascher persuaded an employee to search the Radisson's guest records by first name and country of residence. Indeed, a Noel from Ireland had stayed there on the date stamped on the photo. Nancy Ascher charmed the hotel employee into sharing the guest's e-mail address.

Wonderful.

Except that when Noel responded to Brian Ascher, he said he hadn't lost a camera.

By now, school was resuming, and Ascher was prepared to give the camera to his mom so she could take over. She had figured out the name of the Florida pirate-boat cruise and was trying to reach its operator.

But first Ascher took a final look at the photographs.

He pored over some from Dec. 30 that didn't include the children. The photos showed signs for bars in Manhattan's East Village: The Thirsty Scholar, Telephone Bar, Burp Castle. There also were multiple interior shots of a tavern, but they didn't seem to fit with what Ascher knew of those other three bars.

Then he stopped on another picture, showing two people outside an apartment building. Seemingly accidentally included in the picture was something Ascher had missed the first time: an awning in the background that read "Standings." Aha! Standings is a bar next to Burp Castle. Ascher checked its Web site, and the interior matched the pictures on the camera.

Ascher found Standings' owner, who reached the bartender who had worked Dec. 30. Yes, he recalled an Irish group. Especially because one of the women was a big tipper and said she worked at another New York City bar, Playwrights. The Standings bartender called Playwrights to ask which employees had been in his bar.

Ascher soon got an e-mail from a woman named Sarah Casey, whose sister Jeanette works at Playwrights. Suddenly everything Ascher had seen on the camera came to life.

The Caseys recently had hosted relatives and friends from Ireland. The group included their friend Alan Murphy, who had journeyed to Florida with family before heading to New York, where the clan stayed at the Radisson. (Their Noel was not the Noel whom Ascher e-mailed.) Murphy ended the trip kicking himself for leaving his camera in a cab in the twilight on New Year's Eve.

Sarah Casey agreed to send it to him. It didn't go to Ireland but to Sydney, Australia, where Murphy lives now.

Murphy, an insurance underwriter, had been devastated to lose the pictures from a trip he had planned for years. It was Jan. 10 _ his 34th birthday _ when he heard he would be getting the photos back. "I was over the moon," he says now. "Best present ever."

"I owe you one," he wrote to Ascher. "It's good to know there are some honest people left in the world."

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