That's great and all
I think I would have respected them more if they had just vanished.
But to wait this long before making any kind of contact is just unbelievable.
Even if they lost access to their forum account I'm sure there's some way they could have got the word out. Make a new forum account. Chat on any of the other sites where they know people. Anything but just sitting silent this long leaving everyone to sweat.
My guess is they got cold feet, perhaps someone got an accurate dox on them and they wanted to paint themselves as victims and return a small % of the coins rather than exit the community as confirmed thieves. Otherwise I don't see why it would take them this long to reach out.