Grieving Family Grateful For Nopd Detective Work Angels To Grace Crytpt In Time For Funeral Submitted by N.O.V.A. July 2005 Times Picayune 11-30-1998 ************************************************* Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ For a brief and sad time today, Lucille Prima's family tomb will look as it did for the 100 years before it was ravaged by thieves. Prima, 68, said she was dreading the grim task of burying her daughter-in-law, who died last week, without the two marble angels that have guided her through so many family tragedies. Detectives recovered the two precious statues that were stripped from the tomb and sold in local antique shops, but because the artifacts have been deemed evidence in the case of the alleged cemetery theft ring, it seemed impossible that they would be returned to their marble pedestals in time for today's funeral. But Prima's face broke into a smile before the family tomb Sunday when Detective Lawrence Green told her the statues will be erected briefly during the services, watched over by guards, then removed once the tomb is again sealed shut. "I love you," she told Green before hugging him again, slapping his chest with the crystal crucifix around her neck. Green worked over the Thanksgiving weekend, negotiating with officials at Lake Lawn Metairie Cemetery to restore the tomb to its former splendor for today's funeral. "I cried, and I think it was my tears and my emotion that got to him," Prima said, giving Green another motherly hug before telling the detective how proud she is of his work. Early this year, Prima noticed that one of the tomb's two statues, estimated to be more than 100 years old and together worth about $76,000, was missing. She was angry but kept quiet until March, when she visited the tomb on the first anniversary of the death of her 14-year-old grandson, Michael John Prima, who died in an accidental shooting. That's when she found the second statue also was missing. Not long after she reported the thefts, 3rd District detectives recovered one of them and arrested the three men suspected of prying the statues off the tombs and selling them to feed their drug habits. The angel holding a garland of roses was back in Prima's life, but the one holding a cross was still missing. Last Tuesday, when detectives arrested antiques dealer Aaron Jarabica, 40, for buying the missing statue from the alleged thieves, they made a public plea for information about its whereabouts. "I was convinced it was out of state," Green said, knowing that a number of New Orleans artifacts have surfaced in California. The next morning, Lynnette Prima, Lucille Prima's daughter-in-law, collapsed from a blood clot while teaching a class and died. "They got a pulse long enough to give her the last rites," Prima said. What happened next was called "divine intervention" even by seasoned homicide detectives. The same day that Lynnette Prima died, the missing angel surfaced. "We were thinking that maybe Lynnette's son, Michael (who died last year), said: 'Get those statues back; my mom is coming,"' Prima said. "But we also thought that maybe Lynnette herself, as soon as she got to heaven, sent the statue back to us. We're going to call that statue 'Lady Lynnette.'" Wednesday afternoon, while Prima was en route to her son's side to help with funeral arrangements, Green and Detectives Fred Morton and Willie Bush got a call from someone who said he had the statue whose picture had appeared on the front page of The Times- Picayune that morning. When the officers arrived at the caller's St. Bernard Parish home and saw the piercing marble eyes and solemn face of the statue in his backyard, they knew Prima would have both her angels back. The man said he had bought the statue for $700 and showed the detectives a receipt with the signature of Peter Patout, 42, a French Quarter antiques dealer already arrested twice in connection with the cemetery theft ring, police said. That night, they obtained a warrant for Patout's third arrest, but they have yet to find him. The case broke this spring after many families reported their tombs stripped of precious artifacts and police arrested Carl Campo, 26, and Warren Angelo, 30, both of Chalmette, and David Dominici, 39, of Arabi for the thefts. Some of the stolen pieces were showing up in antiques stores and flea markets in Los Angeles, prompting a wider search for the middlemen, who police said took the statues from the arrested trio and moved them across state lines. An interesting twist came this month when police arrested Patout, Jarabica and two other well-known New Orleanians in connection with the thefts. Dr. Roy Boucvalt, 54, owner of the historic Boucvalt House, and Andrew Antippas, 57, a French Quarter gallery owner who in 1979 was convicted of stealing rare maps from Yale University, also were arrested in connection with the case. The investigation is continuing, and detectives expect more arrests. "In the beginning, I had a theory that the ones who took the statues off the graves were terrible, and I kept wanting to ask them, 'How low could you go?"' Prima said. "But now I feel sorry for them. People who have to steal to feed an addiction are pathetic. "Now, I feel betrayed by those people in the upper echelon, those people who sold the statues out of greed. They didn't need the money. It was all about greed."