Posted on 09/21/2025 9:51:11 AM PDT by algore
Police in Louisiana have arrested three suspects in connection with the theft and destruction of a statue depicting Abraham Lincoln
The incident took place at the Houmas House Estate and Gardens, a historic plantation located in Darrow, a small town between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
Located on a curve of the Mississippi River, the site first attracted European settlers in the early 1700s; construction on the property’s large Greek Revival-style mansion started in 1829. Today, the 38-acre site is a tourist destination,
Kevin Kelly, the site’s owner, noticed the antique, solid silver statue of the nation’s 16th president was missing on September 7
Someone had apparently smashed a window in the middle of the night to nab the foot-tall artwork, which depicted Lincoln sitting on a bench with a stovepipe hat near his outstretched hand.
The 64-pound statue was worth an estimated $166,000 as a historic work of art, per the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office. Its value in silver alone was around $46,000, per the Times-Picayune.
Kelly contacted local authorities, who alerted other nearby departments to be on the lookout for the stolen statue. Not long after, pieces of the statue began turning up at pawn shops and precious metal exchanges in suburban New Orleans. One chunk ended up at Southern Coins & Precious Metals in Metairie, where staffers paid $3,330 for it before ultimately contacting the police.
“We want to see stolen items returned to the owners,” says Beth Higgins, the shop’s manager, to the Times-Picayune. “That’s not the game we want to play.”
Investigators with the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office arrested three suspects, they announced in a September 11 Facebook post: 28-year-old Steve Coronado, 20-year-old Alma Fontenot and 49-year-old Bruce Shelvin. The suspects have been charged with simple burglary and felony theft over $25,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
OMG!
Who?! Booth?!
Where did you hear that?!!
And I will never understand how people like this can decide that it’s okay to just take someone else’s property. Mind-boggling.
At least it was in the spirit of racial harmony.
The look of passing the point of no return isn’t a happy one and it lasts a lifetime.
Destruction of priceless works of art and historical monuments must have an extreme punishment.
Probably life in prison.
The three should be jailed just for looking stupid.
Druggies. They will steal anything to feed their habit.
About 15 years ago there were some idiots I worked with who stole a huge bronze sculpture and tried to sell it at a scrap yard. All three were arrested of course. How does someone explain having a 1000 lb famous bronze sculpture that was reported stolen by the state police, from a state park, at a scrap yard?
But imagine them trying to melt it down and sell the bronze!
Regards,
Dude on the left is 28? Looks more like 48 and sleeps face down in a gravel parking lot.
Sweetcheeks looks like a meth head.
How are they dumb enough to leave valuable historic art like that unprotected?
Methed up.
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