WESTFIELD -- Westfield Police Capt. Michael McCabe is hoping the opening of three antique safes is more exciting than when Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's vault.

McCabe joked that he didn't want to have a "Geraldo moment," referring to a 1986 live broadcast where the TV reporter opened the crime boss' vault only to find it was empty.

The three Westfield safes have been in storage in City Hall for many years. One safe, a Mosler built around 1911, was moved to Moseley School when City Hall was being renovated. Now that the school is being renovated into apartments, McCabe said it was time to try to open it and two others still stored in the City Hall basement.

"Over the years the combinations were lost," he said. "And we didn't have the money to try to open them."

McCabe used the power of social media to put out a call for someone with the skills to open the safe at Moseley School. A Greenfield man responded and agreed to attempt to open all three.

The volunteer spent 10 hours trying to open the first safe Friday, but was not successful. McCabe said he is not giving up, and will take another crack at it this week.

The Westfield Police Department apparently has a safe in storage. Who knew? Research shows the safe is a Mosler Safe... Posted by Westfield Detective Bureau on Tuesday, July 24, 2018

The 1911 safe weighs roughly 4,000 pounds and is on wheels. The other two safes are not on wheels, which McCabe speculated is why they were not moved to the school.

"One is the size of an armoire and the other is about the same size as the one that was moved," said McCabe.

The captain guessed that the large armoire-sized safe weighs about 6,000 pounds and dates back to the turn of the 20th century.

"I've done some research and learned that older safes have a serial number on the handle," McCabe said. "Two of ours have handle numbers."

The three safes were used at the time police headquarters was in City Hall. When the current police station was built in 1972, the heavy safes were left behind.

McCabe said there is probably nothing valuable inside, but he is hoping to find something interesting. McCabe noted that the city's only unsolved murder occurred at the time the safes were in use.

"The Allyn murder of 1940 has never been solved, and at that time murder files were kept in a safe in the chief's office," he said.

Louis B. Allyn, a chemistry professor, was gunned down and killed in his Western Avenue home May 7, 1940.

"You never know what could be inside. I'm definitely intrigued," McCabe said.