As a mail steamer call up the S.S. Central America chug along the Atlantic slide In 1857 , bound for New York , it was hit by a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina . More than 400 hoi polloi died , 38,000 pieces of mail were miss , and an estimated 21 wads of gold — a Brobdingnagian portion of the internal wealthiness recently prospect in the California Gold Rush — absorb to the bottom of the Atlantic after a sinking feeling that took up of 40 hours . Theshipwrecktook with it so much commercial-grade gold , and so many fresh - rich Au prospectors , that the incident trip adownturnin the U.S. economy that was n’t righted until after the Civil War .
And you ’d better believe people tried to find and recall the " Ship of Gold , " as it became known . For 130 twelvemonth , gem Orion scoured shallow amnionic fluid of the Atlantic off the coast of the Carolinas for signs of it , but nobody had any luck even count on the locating of the wrecked ship . Nobody , that is , until 1988 , when an Ohio engineer identify Tommy Thompson found the shipwreck — with relative ease , apparently . convert 160 investor ( mostly from his menage state of Ohio ) to give him almost $ 13 million to manufacture a robotlike equipment to come up and retrieve the loot from beneath 8,000 feet ( 2,438 meter ) of receptive ocean , Thompson became a poor boy .
Fast forward 28 year , and Tommy Thompson , once lionise as the genius who recuperate a pregnant national hoarded wealth , sits in an Ohio jailhouse cellular phone , turn down ( or unable ) to state the authoritieswhere he hid the gold .
A Sticky Situation
In case you ’re interested , when an enormous treasure is name , it ’s no bare thing parsing out who it belongs to . When Thompson and his crew first discovered the wreckage of the Central America , legal troubles arose almost immediately . Insurance company claiming to have assure the ship in the 1800 ’s , for instance , immediately sue for a deletion of the profits . In 2000 , when Thompson sold a dowry of the first 3 - ton haul for an estimated $ 50 million , the investors who had fund the expeditiousness sued him for their percentage of the Au ( they have n’t learn an block of metal of it yet ) .
Then , in 2012 , when Thompson was call into lawcourt yet again , he did n’t show up . A warrant was issued for his arrest , but when the police judge to discover him , they found alternatively that he had vanish completely . And catching him and his girlfriend Alison Antekeier was unmanageable ; not only is Thompson smart , he had " almost measureless resourcefulness and around a 10 - year head outset , " Peter Tobin , U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio , told the Chicago Tribune .
When it came to disappearing , Thompson and Antekeier did everything by the book , literally . Specifically it ’s a book shout out " How to Be inconspicuous , " which was found in Thompson ’s rented Florida mansion ( pay for with moist immediate payment , according to the landlord ) that they fled in 2012 , leave behind nothing but some boxes of newspaper publisher , several disposable cellular telephone earphone , and money straps mark for amount of $ 10,000 . After a manhunt spanning two geezerhood , police force observe Thompson and Antekeier living in a $ 200 - per - nighttime hotel near West Palm Beach . Although the police force celebrated the gaining control , it turns out they were n’t much closer to finding the treasure . need even more background ? arrest out thisSlate videoon the incident :
Where Are We Now ?
Thompson is presently sitting in an Ohio jail cell , obtain a $ 1,000 - per - Clarence Day fine . That ’s on top of the $ 250,000 stemming from a reprehensible disrespect care and 208 hr of community service he was slapped with for not showing up in court in 2012 . And while Thompson sits in pokey , the wreckage of the S.S. Central America remains at the bottom of the ocean . Subsequent outing have turn up even more treasure , like ona 2014 forayby the recovery outfit Odyssey Marine Exploration .
But although he remembers a lot about his discovery , Thompson says he ca n’t think back where he hid the stay Au he did n’t sell . He ’s even been give back his papers confiscated in 2012 so that he can seek to put together the tale , but he ’s not stir . An Ohio court has rule he isfakinghis retentiveness problem , but the fact remains : for now , most of the gem from the SS Central America is turn a loss — again .
