[MSN] Little bronze piggy finds its way home to Stamford office

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Little bronze piggy finds its way home to Stamford office
By Natasha Lee
Staff Writer

March 9, 2007

STAMFORD - Eight months after it was stolen from the Downtown Special Services District, a bronze pig sculpture has returned home.

Property crime investigators returned the metal pig to DSSD on Monday, Executive Director Sandra Goldstein said.

"This little piggy is in our office," Goldstein said. "It was really extraordinary detective work."

The return of the 115-pound pig is about as bizarre as its pignapping.

The investigation began in August, when Goldstein reported the sculpture stolen from a fenced-in storage lot at Broad Street and Greyrock Place. The lot houses public art put on display during the DSSD's summer outdoor sculpture exhibit. The pig was created by Chicago sculptor John Kearney and is valued at $20,000, Goldstein said.

At the time, police told The Advocate someone had "forcibly gained entrance" into the chain-link fence area. Among the dozens of pieces of art stored there, only the pig was missing.

"We were really disheartened. In the 11 years of doing Art in Public Places, we had never had a stolen piece of art," Goldstein said. "It was so out of character for the community."

The trail for a suspect went cold for several months until a tip shed some light on the pig's whereabouts.

Police disclosed few details about the investigation.

During an interview for a case unrelated to the theft, an unnamed individual told police he knew who had the pig, said Sgt. Peter di Spagna, head of the Crimes Against Property unit.

He told police that the person who had stolen the pig was unaware of its value and may have taken it as a novelty, di Spagna said.

The unnamed individual agreed to work with police to negotiate a deal to recover the pig, di Spagna said.

The thief agreed to return the pig and police agreed to no arrests, di Spagna said. He said it's not unusual for police to arrange such deals in an effort to retrieve valuable property.

"We bartered for the safe return of the sculpture," di Spagna said.

Police were told they would find the pig at an undisclosed location in the city underneath a tarp.

"It was in perfect condition and from what we understand it'd been indoors since it was stolen," di Spagna said.

The pig will stay at the DSSD office until the company's insurance agency finalizes its next destination, Goldstein said. The pig has appeared in exhibits worldwide, she said.

Goldstein said the theft prompted her and her staff to rethink security at the storage lot.

"We will be sitting down before the next exhibit, and we will be coming up with a policy that will make it more difficult," she said.

The pig theft ranks among some of the wacky crimes property detectives come across, di Spagna said.

In 2003, a woman was arrested for stealing a parrot from the Parrots & Co. bird shop in Stamford. She was later caught when she took out a classified ad in The Advocate advertising the parrot for free.

Two years ago, a 17-year-old was charged with fourth-degree larceny after he stole a 7-foot wooden moose sculpture from outside Emack & Bolio's ice cream shop on Summer Street.

Di Spagna said the theft of the $20,000 pig was no different.

"There's always bizarre types of crimes. What's bizarre about this is that it was a pig. If it was a sculpture of Aphrodite, that's one thing," he said.

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