No trick, all treat: Man finds 4.39-carat diamond on Halloween at Arkansas state park

MURFREESBORO, Ark. — An Arkansas man found a 4.39-carat diamond Saturday at Crater of Diamonds State Park -- the third largest found at the park this year -- while sifting for gem stones on Halloween.

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Steven McCool, 34, found the canary yellow, jelly bean-sized stone on his 11th bucket of the day about 30 minutes before the park closed.

“As my eyes were panning to it, I was thinking it could be an amber piece of glass like an old Coke bottle,” McCool said in statement. “Once I focused on it though, I knew it was a diamond. I was like ‘No way! No way!’”

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McCool named it BamMam Diamond, using the initials of his two children’s names.

He has not yet decided if he will keep or sell it.

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“I’m torn. I’m somewhat sentimental. It’s my first diamond I found. I am the first person to unearth this, the first person to touch it. It’s hard to wrap my head around it. I am blown away by the clarity, the beauty, how rare it is. I’m definitely blessed, not lucky. It was the Lord’s work,” he said.

The 37.5-acre Crater of Diamonds State Park in southeast Arkansas is the only diamond-bearing site accessible to the public in the world. Diamonds were first discovered there in 1906.

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More than 75,000 diamonds have been found at the park since the first one was discovered in 1906. In 2020, 171 diamonds were registered at the park; six of them weighed at least one carat each. The largest diamond discovered at the park weighed 40.23 carats and was named the “Uncle Sam.”

Because of coronavirus restrictions, the search area is limited to 1,500 tickets a day.

Cox Media Group