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St. Petersburg police say they are close to an arrest in Chihuly theft, release surveillance video (w/video)

 
Andy Schlauch, executive director of the Chihuly Collection, looks over ‘Cobalt and Lavender Piccolo Venetian with Gilded Handles.’
Andy Schlauch, executive director of the Chihuly Collection, looks over ‘Cobalt and Lavender Piccolo Venetian with Gilded Handles.’
Published Feb. 11, 2016

ST. PETERSBURG — Police said Wednesday they are closing in on a suspect in this week's theft of a Dale Chihuly original glass sculpture.

Cobalt and Lavender Piccolo Venetian with Gilded Handles, valued at more than $20,000, was discovered missing Monday from the Chihuly Collection at 400 Beach Drive NE.

The piece, measuring just about 8 inches tall, had been pried off a small pedestal, taking two wooden tiles with it. It was not secured with an individual alarm.

Then, on Tuesday morning, an employee arriving for work at the Morean Arts Center, which owns the Chihuly Collection, encountered a small packing box on the sidewalk outside the building at 719 Central Ave. Inside: the missing Chihuly, loosely wrapped in bubble wrap, recovered about a mile from where it went missing.

The piece, from Chihuly's renowned Venetians series, was undamaged, though it appeared someone had rubbed it down with alcohol.

St. Petersburg Det. Brett McKean said Wednesday that police believe they have identified a suspect in the theft but are not yet ready to make an arrest. They found traces of DNA, including hair follicles, from the box, and rushed the evidence to a laboratory. McKean said he hopes to have test results back this week.

Police also released surveillance video from early Tuesday morning: The video shows someone — believed to be a man, about 6-feet tall and skinny — dropping off a box containing the missing sculpture around 12:09 a.m. outside the arts center on Central Avenue. He approached the building from Eighth Street N, walking down an alley south of Central, McKean said.

The man in the video covered his face with a dark-colored sweatshirt as he set the box down. After leaving, he briefly talked to a man with long blonde hair standing outside a limousine near Eighth.

McKean said investigators want to talk to that blonde-haired man, but he is not considered a suspect in the case.

"A real, face-to-face contact with the suspect immediately after he dropped the box?" McKean said. "That would really help us out."

St. Petersburg police Maj. Paul McWade said Tuesday investigators were "leaning toward somebody that knows" the Morean Arts Center and may have had access to the artwork.

But investigators have not ruled out that a gallery visitor could have taken the sculpture. The gallery was open Sunday, when several hundred people went through to browse the collection.

Police are still actively reviewing surveillance footage taken from inside the Chihuly Collection. McKean declined to release details of those videos Wednesday afternoon, but said detectives have identified a man in them who looks similar to the suspect recorded dropping the box.

The detective said he could not yet definitively identify the two men as the same person.

Contact Zachary T. Sampson at zsampson@tampabay.com or (727) 893‑8804. Follow @ZackSampson on Twitter.