Missing Jesus Statue Is Returned With a Fresh Coat of Paint

A statue taken from a storefront was returned four days later with new paint.

ByABC News
November 2, 2015, 2:50 PM
A Jesus statue was taken from Angels & Company in Monroe, Conn., Oct. 28, 2015 and returned with a fresh coat of paint four days later.
A Jesus statue was taken from Angels & Company in Monroe, Conn., Oct. 28, 2015 and returned with a fresh coat of paint four days later.
Courtesy Midge Saglimbene

— -- The Lord works in mysterious ways, and so, apparently, do some bandits.

A Connecticut store owner was surprised to find that her Jesus statue, which she thought had been stolen, was returned four days later -- and with a fresh coat of paint, she said.

Midge Saglimbene, one of the owners of religious gift shop Angels & Company in Monroe, was disappointed to find her storefront Jesus statue taken from the property Wednesday, she told ABC News today.

"There's a friend that works here sometimes and she was going down Route 25 after Mass," Saglimbene said. "She looked over on her way home and noticed that statue wasn't there and called me."

Saglimbene went to the store and found that the statue was gone -- the statue that was given to her about six months ago by a lady who was moving and couldn’t bring it with her, she said. Saglimbene said she immediately called the police.

But on Sunday, on All Saints Day, the statue was returned to its storefront spot, she said.

"The same friend Debbie was going down Route 25 with her son and she looked over and the statue was there," Saglimbene said, adding that although it was back, it did not look the same.

The statue used to be chipped and the orange color was faded, she said, but the faded color was now painted bright red and Jesus' hair and beard had a fresh paint job as well.

"Out of the goodness of their heart they redid the whole statue," Saglimbene said of the anonymous person who didn’t even leave a note. "I just stood in front of [the statue] and just said thank you whoever this was, I will say a prayer for you."