MURFREESBORO, Ark. — One Arkansas man has been celebrating after discovering that he had found a 4.87-carat diamond at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro.
Jerry Evans of Lepanto first visited the park in the spring, and within 10 minutes of being there, he picked up what he assumed was a clear piece of glass. He put it, along with some other finds in his pocket and continued on with his day.
“I thought it might be a piece of glass, it was so clear. I really didn’t know,” he said. “We were picking up everything thinking it was a diamond."
Even after Evans left, he kept thinking about the piece of clear glass and wondered if it might be something else. He then decided to send off the glass to the Gemological Institute of America to be looked at.
Just a few weeks later they reached out to him and said that his piece of "glass" was actually a nearly colorless diamond.
“When they called and told me it was real, I was tickled to death," Evans explained.
He later contacted the Crater of Diamonds State Park and told them about his find.
"While I get many emails from people wanting me to identify something they’ve found here, to my recollection, this is the first time someone has contacted me after they’ve had a diamond identified by the GIA,” said Assistant Park Superintendent Waymon Cox. “I’m glad that Mr. Evans was able to bring his historic diamond back to the park to have it officially registered.”
The diamond that Evans found is the largest registered find since a man from Maumelle found a 9.07-carat brown diamond back in 2020.
