BILLY SHIELDS: A very unusual item has made its way from the Chesterfield County Police Department's evidence room to the Virginia War Memorial.

STEVE GROHOWSKI: Truly, when I saw this and they opened it up and showed it to me, you just knew it was something special, right?

It was, its old.

Its, you know, you see them in movies and those kind of things, but, you know, to see it in person, it was... you knew it was special.

BILLY SHIELDS: It was this.

An MP 40 machine pistol made in Nazi Germany in 1941.

JESSE SMITH: Like with anything, the objects need the story behind it; is what makes it really interesting.

BILLY SHIELDS: It was given to the department in 1984 by newly widowed county resident Rebecca Edgeworth.

It was owned by her husband Richard, a veteran of the Second World War.

But that just brings up another question.

STEVE GROHOWSKI: We can't pinpoint him to Germany.

It looks like he was on a ship in, the South Pacific.

JESSE SMITH: Also, in doing so, we found out that her husband was a Marine and in the Pacific theater of operations, not the European theater of operations.

So more than likely, he did not bring it back.

BILLY SHIELDS: So how did a Nazi gun end up in the Chesterfield home of someone who served in the Pacific?

The war memorial believes this gun was one of many war trophies from that area.

Souvenirs brought back by soldiers sent overseas.

JESSE SMITH: Well, during World War II you could bring home a rifle and a pistol.

You had to declare it as a war trophy, and you were allowed to bring back a rifle and a pistol in some cases.

And that was the way that you could do that all the way up through Vietnam.

BILLY SHIELDS: Someone registered the gun with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

But the memorial is still looking for those documents because they could confirm a theory Jesse Smith has about how the gun came to Chesterfield County.

Richard was not the only Edgeworth sent to the war.

JESSE SMITH: His brother did serve in Europe, and then he served in an engineering company.

BILLY SHIELDS: Alvin Edwards served in the 770th Ordnance Company, a unit that followed the D-Day invasion into France.

That could explain the weapons backstory.

Meanwhile, at some point, the memorial will likely display the weapon in much the same way this similar model is displayed.

Billy Shields, VPM News.