Gun Rises from the Dead

Gee.  How could something like this happen?

...According to an AGG report, William Stewart Boyd traded his father’s old .38 caliber Smith & Wesson snub nose for less than $100 in a gun buyback in 2004. It was supposed to be destroyed, but somehow the same handgun with serial number J515268 was found next to a dead body involved in a police shooting eight years later....

'Tis a puzzlement.

HT:  Arms/Law