Computer, enhance!: Atlantic City police recover Heart’s stolen instrument using license plate reader technology, surveillance footage
The saga, however, is not over, with police still on the hunt for a still missing mandolin.
Atlantic City police tracked a one-of-a-kind purple Telecaster guitar belonging to musician Nancy Wilson of the 1970s band Heart with the help of surveillance cameras and a license plate reader.
The band was kicking off its summer tour, “An Evening with Heart,” at Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena when police say Garfield Bennett, a 57-year-old man from Pleasantville, N.J., walked into the venue and walked out with two priceless instruments — the now-recovered sparkle baritone guitar and a 1966 Gibson EM-50 mandolin.
“These instruments are more than just tools of our trade — they’re extensions of our musical souls,” Wilson said last week in an Instagram post asking the public for leads. “The baritone Tele was made uniquely for me, and Paul [Moak]’s mandolin has been with him for decades.”
The venue has directed questions regarding the investigation to police and questions to the band have also remained unanswered, so it remains unclear how Bennett was able to walk out with the fancy instruments.
Police said they were able to find Bennett using surveillance video that showed him trying to sell the instruments through various parts of the city on foot. Yet when he was arrested, detectives learned one instrument had already been sold and the location of the other was unknown.
Officers then went back to local surveillance footage to track Bennett giving the guitar to a woman who drove off with it in her car, which they were able to identify and track using license plate readers. The woman told police she had purchased the guitar and voluntarily surrendered the instrument.
Police had previously said any person found in possession of the instruments would be charged with receiving stolen property, though the department made no mention of such when it announced the guitar’s recovery and did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment.
The instrument is now in the hands of Hard Rock Atlantic City, which is slated to return it to the band.
The saga, however, is not over, with police still on the hunt for the mandolin.