After Keshia Smith was devastated by a tragedy in her family last spring, she realized she was feeling suffocated and desperately needed something to go right in her life.
Smith said her prayers were answered on April 22, when she found an uncut, 3.09-carat white diamond in the dirt while visiting an Arkansas state park on a family road trip.
“I really needed this. I really prayed for this, and I just can’t believe it actually happened,” Smith, 47, told Arkansas State Park staff in the visitor center shortly after her discovery.
“I have felt so much pressure the last six months. In October I lost my son, and we just buried my dad a week ago. It has been a lot.”
She noted the diamond’s shape. “To me it looks like a heart. That’s the first thing I saw when I found it,” she said.
Days after her father died, Smith, her brother, Kirim, and her boyfriend, Joey, embarked on a road trip they had been planning for more than a year. They drove from her home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, one of the world’s only active diamond mines where the public can keep the precious stones they find.
Nestled in a dormant volcanic crater near Murfreesboro, the park has yielded more than 75,000 naturally-formed diamonds since local farmer John Huddleston first discovered them in 1906. That history includes the largest diamond ever unearthed in the United States, a massive 40.23-carat white gem called Uncle Sam, found in 1924. Crater of Diamonds became a state park in 1972.
Smith, her boyfriend, and brother arrived on April 21 and spent the first day networking with diggers onsite and scouting the diamond fields where soil is regularly turned to bring the gems to the surface. She began working in earnest on the second day, when she saw the color of the soil darken as she dug and suddenly spotted a fleck of light on the end of her shovel.
Smith placed the stone in her bag and continued digging, doubtful of its worth. Her doubt vanished a short time later when she carried her excavated dirt to the park’s south wash pavilion to wet-sift the material. She washed away caked mud and showed the raw crystal to surrounding searchers, and it caught the eye of one nearby visitor.
“You definitely need to take that up and get it looked at,” the visitor told her. Realizing the significance of what she held, Smith was overcome with emotion, weeping, laughing, and embracing the strangers around her in the wash pavilion.
Later that afternoon, Smith brought the stone to the park’s Diamond Discovery Center, where testing equipment officially verified it as a 3.09-carat white diamond. Park officials described the gem as bead-sized, flat, and colorless, with a few unique natural markings along its edges. It was registered as the second-largest diamond found at the park so far this year.
Following a long-standing park tradition, Smith officially named her stone to add a personal touch: the Za’Novia Liberty Diamond. The moniker blends her two grandchildren’s names with a patriotic nod to Liberty, celebrating America’s upcoming 250th year.
For Smith, the find feels redemptive, but it certainly holds financial potential too. Since rough diamonds cannot be officially appraised in their raw form, Smith plans to have hers evaluated by a certified gemologist. Experts say uncut diamonds typically lose about half their mass during the cutting and polishing process, meaning her 3.09-carat stone might yield a finished gem of about 1.5 carats.
Historically, exceptional diamonds from the park have commanded significant value; in 1998, the state of Arkansas paid $34,700 to purchase the 1.09-carat polished Strawn-Wagner diamond found on the grounds. Depending on the clarity and color grading of Smith’s heart-shaped crystal, gemologists project its final retail value could range between $5,000 and $11,000.
This could be the redemption to her loss Smith had been praying for.
Her find stands out even in a busy season for the crater; park guests have already registered 214 diamonds so far in 2026. The impact that the Za’Novia Liberty Diamond has had on the staff who handled its registration was also unmistakable.
“Ms. Smith exuded joy from the moment she walked in the door,” said Sarah Bivens, a park interpreter who verified the stone. “It’s not uncommon for larger diamonds like this to be found during the first hour of the finder’s dig time. Sometimes, I think diamond finds like this are just meant to be.”
