Police seek man in attempted theft at saint’s shrine
Police in South Jersey are looking for a man who used a pickup truck in a failed bid to break into a donation box at a roadside shrine to St. Padre Pio.
Police in South Jersey are looking for a man who used a pickup truck in a failed bid to break into a donation box at a roadside shrine to St. Padre Pio.
The theft attempt, which was captured on a surveillance video, occurred about 11:40 p.m. Saturday when the concrete pillar holding the donation safe at the shrine in Buena, Atlantic County, was twice rammed by the rear of a Ford pickup, The Daily Journal of Vineland reports today.
A shortime later a man appears, examines the donation box but leaves empty handed because he cannot get into the safe.
"It is beyond me how someone could steal from a venerated place where people go to pray for their sick and dying loved ones," Det. Lt. David Sherma told the newspaper.
There was no damage to the actual shrine itself.
