The KIRO 7 team had a little fun when a Kent teenager, who led police to Patriots Tom Brady's missing Super Bowl-winning jersey, visited our newsroom.
Kent’s Dylan Wagner, 19, was recently cleared by the FBI to share that he was the one who solved the mystery. The FBI and NFL announced weeks after the Super Bowl that Brady’s jersey was found in Mexico, along with a second jersey worn by Brady during the Patriots’ 2015 Super Bowl XLIV victory against the Seattle Seahawks.
>> Related: Kent teen solved mystery behind Tom Brady's missing jersey
Wagner, an unapologetic Patriots fan in Seahawks country, came to the KIRO 7 newsroom to talk about the discovery.
But the die-hard Seahawks fans in our newsroom couldn’t help themselves, planting 12th Man fan signs in the background, where they could be seen during parts of Wagner’s interview.
Wagner’s story of finding Brady’s jersey is quite incredible.
Last year, Wagner, an NFL collector, sold a jersey to another collector in Mexico through eBay. The two shared photos of their collections.
Wagner explained that the items in one of the photos caught his eye.
"A Tom Brady jersey and a Joe Montana game-worn jersey, and the Tom Brady one (was) the Super Bowl 49 jersey when we faced the Seahawks," he said. "If he sent me everything else in his collection, I would have never questioned it, but just because of that one jersey, you know, I threw off the red flags."
After the news of Brady’s stolen jersey broke, Wagner said he knew the collector had it.
The 19-year-old called Houston Police, the NFL and the Patriots. No one took him seriously until he sent an email to the Texas Ranger Division.
“Within, you know, that hour they called me back and they were like, ‘you know what you have is real information there,” he said.
Wagner gave detectives the Mexico address for Martin Mauricio Ortega, who had an International Media Press Pass for February's Super Bowl. Authorities found Ortega on security cameras carrying what's believed to be Brady's jersey under his arm.
Police raided Ortega’s home, but he has not been arrested. The jerseys were returned to Brady.