Police recover sculpture
The sculpture sustained a small amount of damage.
By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
COLUMBIANA — “The Readers” may be spending the rest of the winter indoors at the Columbiana Public Library.
The popular bronze sculpture of a boy and girl reading on a bench was recovered Tuesday by Columbiana and Youngstown police.
One man is in custody at the Columbiana County Jail, and a second faces charges but has not been found.
The sculpture was stolen late Sunday or early Monday from a landscaped area in front of the main entrance to the library at 332 N. Middle St.
“We’re very happy,” said librarian Carol Cobbs, of the news it had been found.
A number of citizens had expressed concern about the theft, she added.
A welcome-home party may be in order whenever the piece is released from police custody, she said.
The sculpture is now in the Columbiana Police Department’s evidence room. It could be released if a judge allows photographs to be substituted for evidence.
Cobbs said the sculpture may stay inside until warmer weather. The library bought the piece in 2004 for $12,500. It stayed indoors until early in 2005.
The sculpture by Max Turner is unique, Cobbs said. Children often sit with the bronze figures.
The library board had been thinking of increasing security at the library before the theft and will consider additional steps, she said.
The 400-pound sculpture measures 44 inches long, 30 inches wide and 36 inches high.
John N. Jay, Columbiana police detective, said the piece suffered a small amount of almost unnoticeable damage.
There is a gouge in the back of the bench’s top rung. A small piece was also broken out of the left front leg, where steel straps had secured it to bricks.
Jay said he believes the two men broke the sculpture free by rocking it back and forth.
Police recovered the sculpture at an unidentified scrap yard in Youngstown, which bought it for scrap for $331.50.
Matthew Stouffer, 21, of North Cross Street, Columbiana, is charged with one count of receiving stolen property.
Jay said the charge is easier to prove than theft and has the same penalty.
In December, Stouffer pleaded guilty to a charge of permitting drug abuse, a felony charge punishable by up to one year in prison. Tammie Jones, the assistant Columbiana County prosecutor who handled the case, said it involved a heroin purchase.
Instead of going to prison, Stouffer was placed in a treatment plan for five years in the county probation department’s intensive supervision program.
Jones said that when a person violates a treatment plan, the judge normally terminates the person’s treatment program.
wilkinson@vindy.com