[MSN] Is DUP museum a thieves' paradise? Too easy: Artifacts stolen from the Daughters of Utah Pioneers building didn't trip alarms

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Is DUP museum a thieves' paradise?
Too easy: Artifacts stolen from the Daughters of Utah Pioneers building
didn't trip alarms
By Justin Hill 
The Salt Lake Tribune 

May 22, 2006

    
 Jerome Smith, who spent time in prison for thefts from the Daughters of
Utah Pioneers Memorial Museum, walks among its displays. He says he regrets
stealing the artifacts. (Danny Chan La/The Salt Lake Tribune )   
 
While his girlfriend was out turning a trick to score some drug money,
Jerome Smith was killing time at the Daughters of Utah Pioneers museum in
Salt Lake City. 
    It was the fall of 1993. Smith hadn't planned to steal anything - until,
he says, he noticed a case filled with pocket watches and Indian War medals
was not locked. 
    So, Smith reached over the counter, opened the case and filled his
pockets. 
    He walked out of the museum and cashed in his haul at an antiques dealer
for a few hundred dollars. 
    Smith pilfered from the museum during several other visits, leaving the
store as museum staff cheerfully bade him goodbye. 
    Earlier this year, the museum again fell prey to similar thefts, and
some of the same rare volumes of LDS scripture that Smith had nabbed were
stolen in an after-hours burglary. 
    The recurring thefts at the state-owned building have some people
questioning the security. 
    "There's some artifacts that can't be replaced," said Eric Pollei, a
descendent of early LDS Church leader George Q. Cannon, some of whose
belongings are in the museum. "Security should be sharpened so this doesn't
happen again." 
    
   "Preserving history": The Pioneer Memorial Museum, located at 300 N. Main
St., displays hundreds of thousands of artifacts on a total of six floors in
two buildings. 
    The items are donated by people who want their heritage protected, said
Mary Johnson, president of The International Society Daughters of Utah
Pioneers. 
    "We are in the business of preserving history," she said. "It is a very
important museum to the state because this is where you find Utah history." 
   Many of the artifacts are kept in glass cases, which are locked and sit
back-to-back or against walls. Some of the cases have alarm sensors. 
    Other items are kept in enclosed display rooms, while larger artifacts,
such as Brigham Young's sauna, sit behind metal fencing. 
    The museum has an alarm system, said Edith Menna, museum director and
second vice president of the organization. She declined to say how the
system worked. 
    Docents, usually on every floor, keep watch during the day, and the Utah
Highway Patrol watches the area, too, as part of the UHP's Capitol security
detail. 
    "We've had very little, really very little problems," Johnson said. 
    The security in 1993 was similar to today's. There was an alarm system,
and all the cases were locked - including the case containing the watches
and medals that Smith stole, Menna said. 
    It had good night security, Menna said. During the day, surveillance
cameras recorded onto tapes, though they did not cover every corner, she
said. 
    "We had very good security both day or night" for that period of time,
Menna said. 
    
    "Piece of cake": None of that security, however, stopped Smith, who
stole from the museum six or seven times during business hours. He took
about $500,000 worth of items, according to reports. They included firearms
and copies of rare Mormon scripture. 
    When the case was secured with small padlocks, Smith just twisted them
off using a pair of pliers. 
    "They handle their history so loosely," Smith said, adding the thefts
were "a piece of cake." 
    Nobody noticed the artifacts were missing until someone who had donated
guns became upset the firearms were not on display, according to a report by
the Utah State Bureau of Investigation, which investigated Smith's thefts. 
    All the display cases were checked, and fingerprints were lifted from
the one containing the pocket watches and medals. 
    The prints came back with a match to Smith. 
    "It's really amazing how insecure that place is. It really is," said
Smith, who served more than a year in prison for the thefts. "I sure
wouldn't put anything in there." 
     
  
Following Smith's thefts, the museum's alarm system and security procedures
were upgraded, Menna said. 
    Ken Sanders said the security upgrades didn't go far enough. 
    The owner of Ken Sanders Rare Books in Salt Lake City said he saw
problems with the security first-hand about three years ago when he was
looking at the museum's collection of rare Mormon books. 
    "I was flabbergasted that there would be $1 million worth of books
sitting in a glass case," he said. "I thought it was an accident waiting to
happen." 
    About 11:30 p.m. on April 11, police say, Robert M. Lindsay broke the
glass case with a hammer. Lindsay took 14 of the books - including some
Smith had stolen more than a decade earlier. 
    Lindsay entered the room after cutting a chain link fence in front of a
window to the manuscript room and breaking the window with a roofing hammer
through a pillow, investigators and Johnson said. 
    No alarms were set off. The window he broke did not have an alarm sensor
on it, said an SBI investigator. 
    Lindsay, who has been charged with felony theft and burglary, allegedly
committed additional thefts during the museum's business hours. 
    In one instance, he allegedly stole some medals and other artifacts from
a closed area where museum staff devising a new exhibit had put out several
medals. They left the artifacts for a few minutes, and the items were gone. 
    Lindsay also allegedly broke a pair of locks on a case containing clocks
and took two of them on separate days. 
    He was eventually tracked down and arrested, and all the stolen items
were recovered. 
   But there were losses. In one instance, early LDS Church Apostle Heber C.
Kimball's personal copy of an 1841 Liverpool, England, Book of Mormon was
defaced - his name apparently scratched out of the front board. 
    "The real tragedy is the loss of history," said Sanders, who inspected
the books. "Part of the historical record has been ripped out of those books
and lost forever." 
    
    Upgrades on the way: Patricia Geisler, Heber C. Kimball's
great-great-granddaughter and historian of his family association, said she
is worried that some items her grandfather donated to the museum can be
stolen. 
    "I would just want them to make it more secure," she said. 
    The organization is upgrading the museum's security. On the day of the
break-in, security people were at the museum planning the new security
system, Johnson said. 
    The organization had been planning the improvements for a long time and
saving money for them, Johnson said. 
    "We have the resources now," she said. 
    About a couple of years ago, lines that led from a surveillance camera
to monitors were disrupted when asbestos was removed from the ceiling. 
    "We knew that it needed to be upgraded again," Johnson said. "We wanted
to be sure we had everything secure." 
    A meeting with the State Capitol architect and museum staff to work out
details of the upgrade will be held in the next couple of weeks, said
Capitol Preservation Board spokeswoman Allyson Gamble. 
    "It will be a whole new system," Menna said. It will be "as secure as
money can do. . . . We've got the very best people working on it." 
    jhill at sltrib.com 
    
 http://www.sltrib.com/