Boy this has turned into quite the story bds9!! I have been meaning to chime in for quite some time but always seemed to get sidetracked.
I had such a similar story as yours this year with the buck I killed in Ohio. In my post on it you will see that we tracked mine for quite some time and distance only to lose the blood trail in the rain. The next day's search produced nothing and soon I was trying to accept the notion that it must have happened for a reason. Headed back home on a Sunday only to find out that my cousin, on their family property in the direction of where the deer was headed, that same day found my buck. Big 8 with a drop tine on the right side, hard for any to doubt it was my deer. Even though I knew my cousin would give the buck back to me I was prepared mentally just in case. Was a tough roller coaster ride for two weeks from the time I saw the buck to the time I finally laid my hands on him.
In talking with my cousin he said flat out, he had no emotional attachment to the buck and could clearly see mine. He wouldn't even think of keeping a buck if he knew who's it was. As he told me a story about a similar situation years ago when he shot a buck and couldn't find it on some other property he had permission on, it was found by the neighbors a few days later and to this date he still had laid his eyes on the rack or even seen a picture of it. You could see the way that made him feel. How any hunter, if they want to call themselves that, could EVER hold on to a buck that they KNOW was killed by another hunter is beyond me.
KARMA is a bitch.....guess those guys found out what THAT really means BDS9!! Glad to hear you are en-route to a happy ending!!