MERIDEN — A bit of dogged online sleuthing by a city librarian and a local woman helped solve the 44-year old disappearance of a class ring and return it to its rightful owner.

Douglas Coombs found the 1978 Platt High School ring in his attic at 193 Stephen Drive. When Coombs died, the ring was in a box of belongings passed to his daughter Denise Lowell, who decided it was time to return the ring to its rightful owner. Her only clues were the graduation date and the initials “LL” inscribed inside the band. She also assumed the person had once lived at 193 Stephen Drive. 

“I had searched before with no luck. I said ‘somebody has to have a yearbook,’’’ Lowell said. 

Lowell contacted the Meriden Public Library and connected with Research Librarian Gerald Maust. 

The library had recently completed digitizing all its local high school yearbooks into an easy to search data base. Maust ruled out male students because none had the initials “LL.” He whittled down the possible owners to four former female students and shared the information with Lowell.

Lowell and Maust used Google and social media profiles to eliminate possible matches. Within a few hours Lowell found Lynne Levesque, whose profile revealed she had lived in Meriden, graduated Platt High School in 1978 and now lived in Texas. But there was no phone number.

Another puzzle was that the home address where the Platt ring was found was in the Maloney High School district area.

Lowell found a…