Stolen Ring Back in Family Circle : Theft: Santa Monica police recover diamond that has been handed down through five generations.

Mary Ballantyne will be able to carry on a family tradition that has lasted five generations thanks to some good police work.

Ballantyne, 67, returned from visiting her grandson in Oakland last month to find that her heirloom 3.2-carat diamond ring had been stolen.

The ring had been passed down from her great-great-grandmother in Holland to the eldest daughter in the family. She received it on her 40th birthday.

Thursday, the Santa Monica Police Department asked Ballantyne to come to the station to “discuss the case.” When she arrived, she found a crowd of television news crews and a detective holding a brilliant diamond solitaire.

“Is this your ring?” asked Detective Connie Brucker.

“If it fits, it’s it,” said a bewildered Ballantyne, as she slipped the ring and its matching gold band around her finger.

“I can’t believe it! How could you have found it?” she asked over and over, her expression turning to a broad smile.

Ballantyne said the ring apparently disappeared on March 17, the day her husband drove her from their Santa Monica home to the airport. Ballantyne said she usually wears the Tiffany-cut diamond but decided to leave it behind on the advice of her husband. They left the front door open for a painter who was working in the house.

The painter recalled later that he heard someone enter the home just after the couple left. He said he thought it was the husband returning.

Ballantyne discovered the ring missing several days later when she decided to put it on. Some cash was missing as well. The couple called police.

Detective Pat Warrick lifted fingerprints from the cash box and, after a check of computer files, police arrested Michael Cockran, 29, whom they described as a career burglar. Brucker, who questioned Cockran, said he admitted selling the ring for $60 worth of crack cocaine and “told us where we could start looking for it.”

The search led to a home near 60th Street and Crenshaw Boulevard in Hyde Park where police said the diamond was traded for the drug.

“The dealer was going to give it to his mother as a gift,” Brucker said.

Cockran was being held without bail on suspicion of robbery and for violating parole, police said.

Ballantyne said she does not know the cash value of the diamond, but she said it was priceless in terms of sentimental value.

“To have five generations not lose it and to have me lose it, that hurt,” she said. “It (will) go to my daughter and her daughter.”