A man accused of stealing brass animal statues from a Gainesville cemetery has been arrested after allegedly driving his truck directly at a patrol vehicle and leading sheriff’s deputies on a pursuit, officials announced Monday.
Multiple statues, many of them life-size, have been stolen in recent months from Gainesville Memorial Park Cemetery. The collection, called Noah’s Ark, draws many visitors, many of them families with children who play on the statues, director of sales Danny Faulkner told Channel 2 Action News in September.
The former owner of the cemetery started collecting the statues several years ago, and the original value of the statues was in the thousands of dollars, Faulkner told Channel 2. But they would not be worth that much if sold for scrap metal, which is what cemetery administrators believe had been happening. Faulkner said at least 18 statues had been stolen as of last month, and only four had been recovered.
Hall County deputies obtained warrants Aug. 30 for 24-year-old Santiago Morales Villalobos, who they suspected of stealing at least four statues. It is not clear if the four he’s accused of stealing were the same four that were recovered.
On Saturday, deputies were alerted that a Ford F-150 that had been reported stolen was located at the entrance to the Amberleigh Trace subdivision on Poplar Springs Road. When they arrived, the driver, later identified as Villalobos, “drove directly at one of the patrol vehicles, forcing the deputy to swerve to avoid a collision,” the sheriff’s office said in a social media post.
Villalobos then sped away to the Willow Ridge subdivision and ditched the truck at a residence, the sheriff’s office said. He was found in the same house.
Villalobos was arrested and faces charges of felony aggravated assault on a peace officer and multiple traffic violations in connection with the police chase. He also faces charges of theft by receiving (truck) and theft by taking (statues).
Another suspect in the statue heist, 25-year-old Abigail Magdalena Reyes, was arrested last month and charged with theft by receiving.
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