On a quiet Thursday morning in March 2007, veteran hotel cleaner Rosa Martinez began what she thought would be another routine shift at the Golden Desert Casino Hotel in Las Vegas. After 23 years of meticulously tending to rooms, Rosa had seen it all — or so she believed.

Her day took a startling turn when she entered room 2847, a luxury suite often reserved for high-rolling guests. The bed was made, the curtains drawn, and the minibar locked — all signs of a typical post-weekend cleanup. As part of her thorough routine, Rosa moved the heavy dresser to vacuum behind it, an area often neglected by others.

That’s when she saw it: a worn leather wallet wedged tightly between the dresser leg and the wall. Opening it carefully, she found a Nevada driver’s license issued in 1995 for a young man named Timothy Blackwood, age 19, from Henderson. The face staring back at her from the faded photo was instantly recognizable. Rosa had worked at the Golden Desert long enough to remember the Blackwood family. Vincent Blackwood, the casino’s owner, had been a prominent figure in Las Vegas. His only son, Timothy, had vanished without a trace during a private party in September 1996, sparking one of the city’s most talked-about mysteries.

The disappearance had gripped local and national headlines. Police combed the city, private investigators were hired, and yet, no answers emerged. Over time, the case grew cold — until Rosa’s discovery.

Alongside the license, Rosa found a business card for Desert Investments LLC with a handwritten phone number, and a key card — not for the Golden Desert, but for the Mirage Casino across town. The magnetic strip on the card looked unused, almost preserved.

Recognizing the gravity of her find, Rosa called her supervisor, Maria Santos. Within minutes, Maria arrived, examined the wallet, and urged Rosa to contact the police immediately.

Detective Frank Morrison from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department answered the call. Morrison, now a senior investigator specializing in cold cases, had worked the original Blackwood investigation as a young officer. The moment he saw the wallet, he understood its significance.

“Where exactly did you find this?” Morrison asked Rosa.

“Behind the dresser. It was wedged tight. Whoever put it there knew it wouldn’t be found during regular cleaning,” she replied.

Morrison photographed the wallet and its contents before carefully sealing them in an evidence bag. His next step was to request historical guest records for room 2847 dating back to September 1996. Unfortunately, the hotel’s policy only retained seven years of records. Still, Maria confirmed that the suite had always been reserved for VIP guests, often booked weeks in advance.

For Morrison, the timing and location of the find were far from random. “Timothy’s wallet showing up here, in this room, after eleven years… that’s no coincidence,” he noted.

The detective’s next call was to Timothy’s father. Vincent Blackwood, now 68, still ran the casino’s daily operations. The tragedy of his son’s disappearance had left its mark, but his business acumen remained intact. When Morrison reached him in his 20th-floor office, Vincent’s voice was steady, but the underlying tension was unmistakable.

“Detective Morrison,” Vincent said, “I remember you from the original investigation.”

The resurfacing of Timothy’s wallet didn’t just breathe life back into a dormant case — it reopened old wounds. For the Blackwood family, it was both a spark of hope and a resurgence of unanswered questions: Had Timothy been in that room the night he disappeared? Why was the key card from the Mirage in his possession? And perhaps most hauntingly — was he still alive?

The discovery has reignited public interest in one of Las Vegas’s most perplexing cold cases. The Mirage Casino declined to comment on the key card’s potential link, and police have not disclosed whether the handwritten phone number on the business card yielded any leads.

For now, Morrison and his team are re-examining old evidence, re-interviewing witnesses, and following the few new threads provided by the wallet. Rosa, meanwhile, has found herself unexpectedly at the center of a mystery she had only ever known from headlines.

“I just did what I always do,” she said quietly. “I clean. I look in places most people ignore. I never thought I’d find something like this.”

Whether this discovery will finally lead to answers after more than a decade remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: room 2847’s secrets are no longer hidden, and the Blackwood mystery is far from over.