Lookout Mountain police say this man walked into the Battles for Chattanooga Museum on Dec. 12 and stole $7,000 worth of Civil War relics from a case. Police are still trying to identify the man, who was caught on camera stealing jewelry from a case at a nearby Harley-Davidson retail shop the same day.
With his spectacles, flat cap and neatly trimmed gray beard, the man who walked into the Battles for Chattanooga Museum an hour before closing time could have passed as a high school history teacher doing research.
In fact, the man was a thief, nabbing $7,000 worth of Civil War relics from a display case before walking casually out the door of the Lookout Mountain museum on Dec. 12.
Lookout Mountain police and Greater Chattanooga Crime Stoppers are trying to identify the man, whose theft was clearly caught on a museum security camera.
"We feel like it's someone who runs in the circles of Civil War enthusiasts -- maybe for the wrong reasons. He knows what he's after and he knows what it's worth," said Jeff Raabe, director of operations for SRC Inc., which owns the museum.
The museum invested in the new surveillance system after a theft from the museum's shop a year ago, Raabe said, but thefts are extremely rare.
HOW TO HELPSee video at www.timesfreepress.com. Anyone with information on the theft could earn a confidential cash reward up to $1,000. Call 423-698-3333.
"I do not know of anyone stealing from the actual exhibit," he said.
Videos show the man came in about 4 p.m. and told the clerk he was a Hixson schoolteacher looking into the rates for bringing a class to the museum.
The man looked around, then walked back to an exhibit room. Cameras captured him taking the glass pane out of a display case and grabbing a shadowbox filled with $7,000 worth of Civil War relics, including 14 valuable belt buckles, police say.
Unable to open the shadowbox, the man carefully zipped the case up inside his jacket.
Another camera showed the man returning a pen to the cashier, then walking out of the museum with his jacket bulging.
"He knew what he was doing. He was smart enough to smudge his prints on the glass afterwards," said Lookout Mountain Police Chief Randall Bowden.
The same man was captured on another camera the same day stealing $3,500 worth of jewelry from Thunder Creek Harley-Davidson in Chattanooga, one LMPD investigator discovered.
Police say they believe the man is between 50 and 60 years old, about 5 feet 5 and 130 pounds. He is seen walking with a slight limp on the video.