St. Anthony statue found damaged

GREEN BAY - Parts of a statue that was reported missing earlier this week have been found. On Sunday, the statue's owners noticed it was missing from a chapel on the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus. Police found pieces of the statue today about a mile and a half away, near a trail on campus. Police are still working on finding who took the statue.

For 84 years a statue of Saint Anthony, the Catholic patron saint of missing things stood in a chapel on the UWGB campus.

"It's amazing how much this little chapel has given peace to people," said Joan Jadin, who helps with upkeep on the chapel and the statue.

But now, pieces are all its owners can find of the statue.

"It's really sad. I had hoped that someone would come forward and let us know and have it returned to us, but everyday we pray for the one who did it," said Jadin.

Jadin's grandparents built the chapel and bought the statue in the 1920s. She and her family still take care of chapel.

While she is praying for whoever took the statue, police are hoping to find whoever destroyed it.

"It's a victimization of our campus. It's a victimization of the Jadins. It was their statue. It's their chapel. It's kind of an irreplaceable item. It's over 80 years old, It's probably almost priceless I mean to the family as well as our campus community," said Sergeant Jeff Gross with UWGB Police. "It's not an item that we can easily replace so it's really important that we want to try to do everything we can to get info to find out who is responsible and try and get some closure on the case."

Police first thought the statue had been missing since Sunday. But recently a university employee said he had seen pieces of something broken on the campus trail about three or four weeks ago.

"The theft was not reported at that point so the employee didn't know that it was relevant to our investigation," said Gross.

UWGB professors say the pieces found near the trail are pieces of the St. Anthony statue, but Joan Jadin doesn't want to believe it.

"The statue has meant so much to our family and friends and people from around the village that have helped in the upkeep of the chapel," said Jadin.

Though the chapel is now missing its patron saint, the Jadin family hopes it won't be that way for long, and is working on replacing it.

If you have any information about who took the statue, police want to hear from you. You can reach UWGB Public Safety at 920-465-2300, extension 2.

The Jadin family says it is offering a reward for information on the case.