Family Can’t Locate Destitute Track Star’s Gold Medal Milburn’s Death Leads To Scramble After Hurdler’s Memorabilia

Olympic gold medalist Rodney Milburn’s family is having trouble getting the medal he won at the 1972 Munich Games, and other awards and memorabilia.

Milburn, 47, died Nov. 12 in an accident at the paper mill where he worked.

His relatives believe the Olympic gold - won in the 110-meter hurdles - is in a safe deposit box. But they don’t know the name of the bank and can’t find the papers for his storage vault and his safe deposit box.

Most of Milburn’s belongings were in storage, because he had no home, said his sister, Mary Barnes of Houston. He could have asked his family for help, but probably wanted to solve his problems himself, she said.

More of his memorabilia was sold at auction because Milburn had been unable to pay storage bills.

Louis Esskew, who bought the storage lot at auction for his thrift store in Woodville, Miss., got in touch with Milburn after reading an article in The (Baton Rouge) Advocate about Milburn and the sale.

Shortly before Milburn died, they had made arrangements for him to buy back the medals for the amount paid at the auction, Esskew said. Now he’s not sure what to do with them.

“If Rod came, it would have been different,” Esskew said.

He has been overwhelmed by calls from Milburn’s family, the Olympic archives, and from people around the country, all with conflicting stories about why they would be best suited to take care of Milburn’s things.

“Nobody showed an interest in it until he died. I hadn’t heard a word,” he said.

Barnes said her brother kept the Olympic medal in a safe deposit box.

“He didn’t leave his gold medal in his house, much less laying around in storage. That’s one of the things you hold on to,” Barnes said.

When Milburn gave motivational talks, he took the medal out of the vault but promptly return it afterwards, his sister said.

He carried the documentation for the storage and safe deposit box in a black attache case with a combination lock, but family members have not found the case, Barnes said.

The search for Milburn’s storage space has been complicated by his money troubles. Barnes said her brother was in transition, searching for an apartment in Baton Rouge while staying at a motel and a homeless shelter.

Barnes said Milburn’s pending divorce from his wife Betty, and other bills and debts, cut into her brother’s earnings.

She said the family has been working together to get the awards back.

Esskew doesn’t know what to do with the ones he has.

“For the time being, I’ll just hold on … I don’t know which way to go with this. The truth would help a lot,” he said.