Sara Podorski sold their family's non-working computer at her rummage sale on Friday only to make a heartbreaking discovery shortly later: It contained some 4,000 photos that chronicle the lives of their two daughters from birth.
Now, she and her husband, Josh, are desperately seeking the couple who bought the black HP tower computer. Over the weekend, they've posted notices on social media and online classifieds such as Craigslist in hopes of finding the couple. They've followed dead-end leads and they're considering posting flyers.
"We're still desperately hoping and praying it returns," she said in a Sunday evening phone interview.
Their older daughter, Olivia, 13, knows about the situation, but their younger daughter, Samantha, 8, doesn't.
She said a couple who purchased the old computer is in their 50s or 60s and came to their rummage sale at their home, 4920 Brookview Drive, on Friday. She asked for $5 for the old computer, and the woman asked if she would take $2. They settled on $3.
She said the man wore a camouflage hat and sunglasses. The woman had long salt-and-pepper hair and a black and white snakeskin purse. Both wore jeans, and one of them - she couldn't recall which - wore a Ducky Dynasty T-shirt.
When she spoke to her husband by phone shortly after the sale, she mentioned that she sold an old computer.
"Please tell me you didn't sell the black tower," he said. He told her the power supply didn't work, but that nothing on it had been cleared off and backed up yet.
When she realized what had happened, she frantically scoured other garage sales in the neighborhood and enlisted the help of neighbors to do the same, in hopes the couple would be at other nearby garage sales as well.
But they weren't able to locate the couple, and haven't had any solid leads.
Podorski is hopeful that the computer's hard drive isn't erased yet, since it doesn't work. But she's afraid that it could be pawned for parts.
Podorski, her voice filled with emotion, said she hasn't yet finished scrapbooks she started with the photos.
So they have no other copies of most of the photos that were on the hard drive.
She didn't know how many photos there are on the computer, but estimated between 4,000 and 5,000, including some video.
"My heart is breaking," she said. "Please, please, please bring it back. Please help us get our baby girls' pictures back. They're not babies any more. I can't record them again."