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 ...
Hang the thieves!
I am SO sick of these lawless bastards destroying works of art.
Every loss of art is tragic. A beautiful piece. Hope there’s still a master mold somewhere.
The alleged thieves.
Lincoln has been martyred and beatified by historians for almost 200 years and it’s my opinion that he left the kind of legacy where political correctness makes him immune from critical thinking. He was a great subject for beautiful works of art however - I don’t deny that
At least they are a diverse little band of thieves.
I will never understand how casually some people destroy beautiful, rare or even irreplaceable things, whether they be artifacts made by human beings, like this one, or magnificent creatures like the ivory billed woodpecker or Carolina conure.
What greed!
I’m with you on this one.
It is a magnificent sculpture, just find a tree and three ropes and be done with them.
“I will never understand how casually some people destroy beautiful, rare or even irreplaceable things...”
Maybe they figure if they can destroy everything that’s great and beautiful, then they won’t stand out as being such ugly losers.
Not very smart... when you pawn something you get thumb printed. And these geniuses were probably fingerprinted from previous arrests.
I’m wondering if they were leftists?
They probably were melting the statue for the silver content and were going to sell it piece by piece.
Hope they get at least 20 years in Prison to think about what they did.
M.E.T.H.
Not even smart enough to melt it down.
Do you really have to ask?
Lincoln was martyred by J.W. Booth.
It’s The Mod Squad!
Got a feelin Bruce has been inside before. Judge isn’t going to like that.
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