S4|E32: The Cemetery Detective

Summary

Gone South: S4|E32 - The Cemetery Detective

Introduction: New Orleans’ Gothic Allure and the Rise of the Cemetery Beat

New Orleans, often celebrated as America’s most gothic city, is renowned for its wrought iron balconies, jazz funerals, and an atmosphere of humid decay. This rich cultural tapestry set the stage for a unique criminal phenomenon in the 1990s. In Season 4, Episode 32 of Gone South, host Jed Lipinski delves into the intriguing story of Eric Morton, a New Orleans police officer who became the city’s first cemetery detective.

Narrator (Jed Lipinski): "New Orleans has always been America's most gothic city... No one was more aware of this trend than New Orleans police officer Eric Morton." ([02:00])

Formation of the Cemetery Unit

Amidst a surge of misbehavior in the city’s cemeteries during the mid-90s, the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) established a dedicated cemetery unit. Officer Eric Morton, a native New Orleanian with a deep appreciation for the city’s historic cemeteries, was chosen as its first member.

David Damanisi: "They did. They basically called us the cemetery police, you know, so here comes the cemetery police." ([03:11])

The Onset of Cemetery Thefts

Initially, the thefts were minor—vases moved between tombs and small artifacts disappearing. However, in the fall of 1997, the scale escalated dramatically. Ornate marble statues, benches, and other significant items began vanishing from some of the city’s most prestigious cemeteries, including those of prominent figures like Ted Brennan and Lucille Prima.

Lucille Prima: "They stole my family’s angels from the tomb. It was like losing a part of our soul." ([07:44])

These high-profile thefts not only targeted valuable items but also deeply affected grieving families, transforming the investigation into a matter of preserving the sanctity and memory of the deceased.

Investigative Breakthrough: Tracking the Stolen Artifacts

As reports of stolen items spread nationwide, with artifacts appearing in cities like Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta, Eric Morton began to suspect that the thefts were part of a larger, organized operation. The turning point came when a groundskeeper at Lake Lawn Cemetery provided a crucial lead.

Groundskeeper: "I saw two men trying to break a statue, then they sped away in a white van." ([09:34])

This eyewitness account led Morton to Mildred Campo, whose son, Carl Campo, was found in possession of stolen items. This arrest unveiled a network that extended beyond desperate addicts to include savvy antique dealers eager to exploit the lucrative market for cemetery artifacts.

The Mastermind Revealed: David Damanisi’s Role

Carl Campo revealed that David Damanisi was the mastermind behind the thefts. Damanisi, struggling with heroin addiction, initially turned to stealing flower pots to support his habit. Recognizing the high value of cemetery statues, he orchestrated a more profitable scheme, targeting abandoned tombs and selling the artifacts to local antique dealers.

David Damanisi: "We’d take and empty out the flowers sometimes right there on the people’s lawn uptown." ([16:29])

Under his leadership, the operation expanded, generating significant illicit profits by supplying dealers who catered to the emerging "cemetery chic" trend in design.

Unraveling the Conspiracy: Law Enforcement’s Efforts

With Damanisi’s cooperation, Morton and his partner Detective Larry Greene zeroed in on involved antique dealers and collectors. Their investigation led to several raids:

1. Barristers Gallery: Although initially hosting bizarre items like human skulls and shrunken heads, no cemetery artifacts were found here.
2. Patou’s Antiques: This establishment proved to be the epicenter, where numerous stolen items were discovered. The owner, Peter Patou, initially denied any wrongdoing but eventually admitted to purchasing the items from Damanisi under false pretenses.

Peter Patou: "If they're from a cemetery, then that's where they belong." ([27:47])

These discoveries confirmed that the thefts were not just random acts of vandalism but a coordinated effort to plunder New Orleans’ historic cemeteries.

Legal Proceedings and Aftermath

The investigation culminated in a high-profile trial in May 2000. While Damanisi pleaded guilty and cooperated fully, leading to substantial recoveries and arrests, the court proceedings for the antique dealers were mixed. Peter Patou was convicted of conspiracy and possessing stolen property, receiving a six-year sentence. However, other defendants were acquitted due to challenges in proving their knowledge and intent.

David Damanisi: "To prove conspiracy and possession, you have to prove knowledge. It's very difficult to prove what's in someone's head." ([32:52])

Despite the legal setbacks, the NOPD managed to recover over half a million dollars worth of stolen artifacts and provide restitution to affected families.

Long-Term Impact and Legacy

Seven years post-investigation, Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on New Orleans’ cemeteries, further endangering the historic sites. Today, these cemeteries face challenges of maintenance and funding, shifting from sanctuaries of memory to tourist attractions buzzing with social media activity.

Eric Morton, though reassigned and eventually retiring from the NOPD, remained haunted by the case. His relentless pursuit symbolized a deeper commitment to preserving the city’s heritage against both human and natural threats.

Narrator (Jed Lipinski): "But Eric Morton couldn't let go of the case. He disappeared down rabbit holes, demanding deeper investigations that never truly materialized." ([34:06])

Conclusion: A City’s Heritage at Stake

Gone South’s episode on "The Cemetery Detective" not only recounts a thrilling true crime story but also underscores the fragile balance between preserving history and combating crime. As New Orleans continues to evolve, the legacy of officers like Eric Morton serves as a reminder of the importance of safeguarding the stories and souls interred within its historic grounds.

---

Notable Quotes:

• David Damanisi: "We're gonna get him out, right? We're gonna get him out and get him talking." ([15:12])
• Lucille Prima: "They took him from me. They took him from me." ([07:55])
• Peter Patou: "If they're from a cemetery, then that's where they belong." ([27:47])

Key Takeaways:

1. Historical Preservation vs. Crime: The thefts highlighted the vulnerability of historical sites and the lengths some would go to capitalize on their value.
2. Organized Crime Evolution: What began as petty thefts escalated into a sophisticated racket involving addiction-driven desperation and opportunistic profiteering.
3. Law Enforcement Challenges: Proving criminal intent and conspiracy in court proved difficult, underscoring the complexities of legal proceedings in organized crime cases.
4. Cultural Impact: The case shed light on changing cultural trends like "cemetery chic," which contributed to the demand for stolen artifacts, intertwining fashion with historical desecration.

Final Thoughts:

Jed Lipinski’s Gone South masterfully intertwines crime, culture, and human emotion, offering listeners a comprehensive and engaging exploration of one of New Orleans’ most peculiar criminal cases. For those fascinated by true crime and Southern heritage, this episode is a compelling listen that illuminates the darker undercurrents of a city rich in history and tradition.

Transcript

[Jen Hatmaker]

Hey everyone. I'm Jen Hatmaker, host of the for the Love podcast. Every week I'm joined by my dear friend Amy and we dive into the good stuff. So it's real stories, honest conversations, super inspiring guests who help us make sense of life and love and faith and just this whole messy middle. We talk about career pivots, we talk about parenting, teens and young adults dating again. Hello. And just all the ways we're still becoming. We laugh, we, we sometimes cry. We definitely learn and we certainly don't take ourselves too seriously. So whether you are chasing purpose or you're rebuilding or maybe just trying to keep your plants alive, there is a seat for you at our table. New episodes drop every week, so hit subscribe and come hang out with us on for the Love.

[Eric Morton]

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[David Damanisi]

They did. They basically. They called us the cemetery police, you know, so here comes the cemetery police.

[Eric Morton]

In the mid-90s, an outbreak of misbehavior in New Orleans cemeteries caused the NOPD to create its own cemetery unit. Eric Morton was its first member.

[David Damanisi]

We'd have two shifts. Basically, you're looking dusk to dawn, and we would all take shifts. It was multiple police officers, and we would travel to different cemeteries at night and we would patrol them.

[Eric Morton]

Eric grew up in New Orleans. He'd always admired the grandeur of its cemeteries, known among locals and tour guides as cities of the dead. But in his new role, Eric discovered they were being desecrated on an almost nightly basis.

[David Damanisi]

Actually, my introduction to the cemetery, believe it or not, was a woman that was looking just like something out of the Vampire Diaries. Black negligee, see through, white skin, the fangs. She had a. I forgot what they call. It's a squiggly knife. And she had a cat that. She had literally gutted a cat wide open, and it was literally dripping down onto a body. She pulled out the tomb and then she's got.

[Eric Morton]

Sorry. She pulled a body out of one of the tombs in the cemetery.

[David Damanisi]

She pulled out a body of one of the tombs in the cemetery. Had a pentagram.

[Eric Morton]

Eric and his partner approached the woman from behind. When his partner cocked his gun, she wheeled around and raised the knife.

[David Damanisi]

When she came at him with the knife, she hissed at him. You know, he basically said, bitch, you don't drop that fucking knife, you're gonna see the devil quicker than you can shake a stick at. And that was it. Then reality sets in. And that was it. So she went to jail.

[Eric Morton]

But as rowdy as New Orleans cemeteries were back then, only rarely did cemetery artifacts disappear. When they did, Eric said it was typically because a visitor had moved a vase from one tomb to another. Cemetery staff, who kept a log of every item, would find it and move it back. In the fall of 1997, however, a raft of cemetery thefts swept the city. Pots, chairs, benches, and ornate marble statues were vanishing in large numbers. The ensuing investigation would make national headlines and scandalize some of the city's most prominent residents. It would also be Eric Morton's first and last case as A New Orleans detective. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is gone south. After putting in a year on the graveyard shift, Eric Morton was reassigned to other units inside the New Orleans Police Department. He spent time in CompStat, copspeak for computer statistics, analyzing crime data to identify patterns and hotspots. In the fall of 97, he was promoted to detective. As if on cue, the cemeteries began reporting missing items. At first it was just a few urns and vases. Given his background, Eric was assigned to the case.

[David Damanisi]

My supervisor is basically, I'm the new detective. So I'm the new guy. I'm basically the compstat guy. I'm not normally doing investigations, but this was two pots. Yeah, go ahead and give it to Morton. You know, it's two pots. You know, he does a cemetery. Give it to him.

[Eric Morton]

Because Eric was a rookie, they gave him a partner, a seasoned homicide detective named Larry Greene. They were instantly the laughing stock of the nopd.

[David Damanisi]

All the other detectives, all the other cops, everybody, they were just, they were giving us a hard time because you got murders going on. You've got kidnappings, murder murders, rapes, robberies, and here we are, here's this. I have taken away one of the best homicide detectives, Larry Green, in my opinion, on the police department, and I've taken him to go investigate flower pots. Come on, here come the pot detectives, you know.

[Eric Morton]

But then more artifacts began disappearing. The victims included members of the city's elite. Ted Brennan, who at the time owned the iconic Brennan's restaurant in the French Quarter, said his family's tomb was stripped of a five foot statue of Mother Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants. Lucille Prima, a relative of the jazz legend Louis Prima, reported the theft of two Italian marble angels from her family's tomb. She'd discover they were gone while visiting the grave of her 14 year old grandson who died the year before. When Eric and Larry interviewed her, she wept. She begged them to find the thieves who took it.

[David Damanisi]

And she came to us and said, my grandson passed away and they stole him from me. They took him from me. They took him from me.

[Eric Morton]

Eric's heart ached for Lucille. His year patrolling cemeteries had taught him how much such items mean to people.

[David Damanisi]

Every single piece of every single tomb, from a blade of grass to the ornate statue that can be put on top of a tomb. This is a representation of a family member that died. This is a child, a small angel is a representation of a child that may have passed away. And so when somebody steals something from a tomb like this, they're taking Away a part of the family's soul.

[Eric Morton]

Eric says Lucille Prima raised the stakes of the investigation. It was no longer about missing flower pots. It was about rescuing the souls of the dead. Around the same time, the NOPD got a strange call from California. A New Orleans born contractor living in LA told police that he was walking through a flea market when he noticed some artfully corroded urns and marble statues priced in the thousands. When he inquired about their origins, the seller said they were from New Orleans cemeteries. I was horrified. The man later told the Times Picayune. Similar reports began coming in from New York and Atlanta. It occurred to Eric that whoever was stealing these statues may have been selling them to dealers in other states. To combat the thefts, local cemeteries formed a coalition. That February, they gave the NOPD their first real lead.

[David Damanisi]

They came to us, they said, listen, we think we have somebody that's coming during the day. I said, wow, coming during the day, okay, well that's new because usually they do this at night and that's what we'd catch them.

[Eric Morton]

Not long after, they got reports of a suspicious white van cruising through the tombs at different graveyards across the city.

[David Damanisi]

We go and interview all the workers at every cemetery that something was stolen, everything from the Jewish cemeteries to the Catholic ones to all over. And you just start interviewing and you start going, oh yeah, I saw this man and oh, I saw this person. And then over time we got a description of all three of them.

[Eric Morton]

The suspects were described as white men, One with curly black hair, one with straight brown hair, and one with a ponytail and an oddly shaped goatee. The cops set up surveillance at the hardest hit graveyards, but it went nowhere. Then in early April, another lead came in. This one was from a groundskeeper at Lake Lawn Cemetery, the final resting place of numerous Louisiana governors, Confederate generals and Mardi Gras royalty. According to Eric's police reports, the groundskeeper told him that at 4:15 that afternoon, he'd spotted two men trying to crack a four foot Italian marble angel off its pedestal. When the men noticed him approaching, they jumped into a white cargo van and sped off. But the groundskeeper got the plate number. When Eric ran the plate, he saw it was registered to a 62 year old woman named Mildred Campo. He assumed Mildred wasn't the one muscling hundred pound statues into her van. As Eric wrote in a report, referring to himself in the third person, Detective Morton reasonably suppositioned that one of the suspects may have been a son or a close relative thereof. He was right. When he and Detective Larry Greene pulled up to Mildred Campo's house. They found her son Carl sitting in a white cargo van outside. The back of the van was littered with fresh potting soil. Eric asked Carl if by any chance he'd been at Lake Lawn Cemetery earlier that day. Carl said he was. He and a friend had left some flowers on another friend's grave. He said. Erik asked what his dead friend's name was. Carl said Nicholas Gandolini. So Eric called the cemetery. The cemetery responded that no one with that name was buried there. With that, Campo was arrested. He quickly coughed up the names of his two co conspirators, both of whom were already in jail on unrelated charges. But one of them bore a lot more responsibility than the other. Campo said he was the mastermind behind the cemetery thefts. Eric Morton was ecstatic. He'd just solved his first case as a detective, but in many ways his investigation was just beginning. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of identity theft every five seconds in in the U.S. fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply I'm.

[Emma Greed]

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[Eric Morton]

Carl Campo told detective Eric Morton that the man behind the string of cemetery thefts, the one who'd come up with the plan and roped the others in, Was a man named David Damanisi. So on the morning of April 11, 1998, Eric and his partner sat down with David at the St. Bernard parish jail. David freely admitted to stealing from the cemeteries. But despite his quick confession, the detective sensed he was holding something back.

[David Damanisi]

He's still not quite giving us enough. And so, Larry, like I said, he was a experienced detective. He knew. He said, look, we're gonna go sign David Dominisi out of prison, and we're gonna get him out, right? He says, I'm gonna tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna go get a beer, and we're gonna get him a po' boy sandwich. We're gonna butter him up a little bit and kind of get him to talk so we get him out of prison. He's got shackles on. He's handcuffed to the shackles. We can't take those off. And at that point, we were his best friend.

[Eric Morton]

David waived his rights and agreed to cooperate fully in the investigation. I spoke with David by phone. He lives in Araby, one of the small towns that make up St. Bernard Parish. A few years ago, I produced a documentary for Netflix called the pharmacist, which was set there. The story involves a pill mill that was open 24 hours a day at the dawn of the opioid epidemic. When I mentioned it to David, he said he was a frequent customer.

[Jed Lipinski]

You'd sit there, like, all day long just to make the doctor. But it was worth it, man. You write like, 100 methadone pills, 100 pain pills, 100 somas, 100 valiums. And that was, like, grand street value of pills, man.

[Eric Morton]

David is now in recovery, but he was addicted to heroin for years. Back in 97, he said he and a group of friends each had $300 a day habits to support. David knew other addicts who held up gas stations and broke into people's homes. But David said he didn't want to hurt anyone. So he resorted to stealing planters off people's porches and selling them to a guy he knew at the French Quarter flea market.

[Jed Lipinski]

And they were old and antique, and we would take and empty out the flowers that were in it sometimes right there on the people's lawn uptown, right off the porch.

[Eric Morton]

The hustle worked. David soon graduated to selling his stolen planters to local antique stores for a few hundred bucks apiece. It was then that he got an idea for a more lucrative scam.

[Jed Lipinski]

I was waiting on the guy to write my check out, and I looked in the corner and it had a little marble antique statue. And I happened to look at the price tag. It was $23. I said, wait, how much you want for this statue here?

[Eric Morton]

The statue was priced at $23,000. It looked to him like something you'd find in a cemetery. A light bulb went on in David's head. That same day, he and a buddy began canvassing local cemeteries for similar looking statues. He was shocked by how many there were.

[Jed Lipinski]

There's so many of them. It was ridiculous, man. It was so vast. They got so many, many, many, many, many of these statues and many of the tombs that the people don't even go there anymore. They was born in the 1700s, you got me. And they died. And they're like you, mid to early 1800s. That's how old some of these tombs are, Jed. And nobody would come there anymore, you know.

[Eric Morton]

David was also surprised to learn that the statues on many of the old tombs weren't fastened down. You could push them right off their pedestals. Back then, David owned a compact Subaru Justy with a hatchback. After identifying a pricey looking statue, he and his friend wrestled in into the car.

[Jed Lipinski]

I wiggled it. It wasn't anchored down or nothing. So come on, come on, come on. It was about £300. We heave hoed it into the hatchback of the Subaru Justy. And it's kind of like the front was sitting high in the back, man, you know?

[Eric Morton]

David said he brought the statue to an antique dealer he'd sold some flower pots to. When the dealer asked where it came from, David said his grandmother had just passed away and he was selling off pieces from the plantation house she'd owned.

[Jed Lipinski]

I got a couple of them and I wanted to know if you were interested in buying any, because I see.

[Eric Morton]

You have here one David said the dealer bought the story, or at least he pretended to. He paid David $2,500 for it.

[Jed Lipinski]

I said, shit, this ain't bad, man. I said to myself, man, look, all I really need to do, take one of these and we'll be good for two or three weeks, man, because we had all had monkeys on our backs. You know, when you got three people strung out on heroin, you know, it don't really last that much longer.

[Eric Morton]

David knew he was onto something. He and his friend began wandering the city's historic cemeteries like a couple of tourists. St. Louis, number one, home of Marie Laveau, the legendary voodoo queen. Lafayette Cemetery, where scenes from Interview with a Vampire were shot. And St. Roch Cemetery, built during the yellow fever epidemic of 1867. Wrangling 300 pound statues into a Subaru Justy wasn't sustainable. So they began using their friend Carl's moving van. According to David, they focused on tombs that looked abandoned. With no living heirs because they operated during the day, they blended in with the army of florists and delivery trucks that serviced the city's cemeteries.

[Jed Lipinski]

It didn't even raise an eyebrow to the people at the cemetery or the maintenance crews or the grass cutting crews or nothing. It didn't even raise an eyebrow. Okay.

[Eric Morton]

After selling a few more statues to that first antique dealer, David branched out. He repeated the story about his grandmother's plantation home to other dealers whose shops line Magazine street and the French Quarter.

[Jed Lipinski]

You know, they would buy into it and that would be okay, this one's good for five or six, this one's good for five or six. And I had like two dozen antique dealers, right? So I orchestrated Mastermind and a gold mine, man.

[Eric Morton]

David says he sold the items for as little as 50 bucks and as much as 3,000. He would later see the same items in display windows priced at 10 times that. Still, there was a limit to the number of statues and artifacts his grandma's home could conceivably hold. David said that at a certain point, it should have been obvious that the statues were stolen.

[Jed Lipinski]

You know, they could see a guy that's coming in with the same clothes on for three days, you know what I mean? And beat up, right? You know, you're coming in there with a $25,000 statue and you're selling it for 1200.

[Eric Morton]

David said most of the antique dealers eventually turned them away, but a handful of them did not. In fact, David said these individuals encouraged him and his crew to bring them more. Until now, Eric's focus had been on catching the thieves responsible for stealing cemetery artifacts. With their arrest, he figured his job was done. But the more he listened to David, the more he realized they were just a piece of a larger puzzle. At that point, Eric Morton's investigation entered a new phase, one focused not on drug addicts stealing to ward off dope sickness, but on high end antique dealers and their wealthy clients who shared a passion for a new design fad known in New Orleans and elsewhere as cemetery chic. The key to bringing these dealers down was David Dominisi and he literally rode.

[David Damanisi]

Around with us like he was the king in the back of the I thought he was the king of carnival sitting on a chair during a float during Mardi Gras, you know. And so he's in the back of the car, he's going up, oh, this antique dealer did this one. We're marking it down. This one's got this statue. And he was going to help us take down these antique dealers who were stealing the souls of all the people in this cemetery.

[Eric Morton]

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[Jen Hatmaker]

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[Eric Morton]

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[David Damanisi]

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[Eric Morton]

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[David Damanisi]

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[Eric Morton]

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[David Damanisi]

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[Eric Morton]

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[David Damanisi]

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[Jen Hatmaker]

See for [e-mail].

[Eric Morton]

In his conversations with Eric Morton, David Damonisi had revealed how he and a few friends had managed to steal dozens, perhaps hundreds of urns, statues, wrought iron benches, and more from New Orleans historic cemeteries. But for Eric, the most shocking revelation was that certain well known local antique dealers were in on it.

[David Damanisi]

The antique dealers, some of them sent these guys out so much so that they would give them a description. Hey, do you think maybe you can find me an angel at the wings or just happen to be floating in the air like this? If you can get them between four and five foot tall, I have somebody that's looking for something like that. And definitely the white Carrera marble.

[Jed Lipinski]

You know, now listen, when I spoke to some of the antique dealers, Jed, I knew, and they knew that they were looking for the ones with more detail, and that's what they really wanted.

[Eric Morton]

So as not to upset the living, David had originally stolen artifacts from abandoned tombs, or at least that's what he told me. But now, with specific instructions from antique dealers, David widened his search. Having agreed to cooperate with the investigation, David took Eric Morton on his own kind of cemetery tour, one that detailed all of the crimes he'd committed for being doped up.

[David Damanisi]

His memory was pretty damn good because he told us what specific statue that he sold to each specific antique dealer. He described the specific doors they would use at each antique shop, and he would not know that information had he not actually done it. He told us where the statues would be located, and he even went down to say, there's a room in the back where they keep this, the good stuff, as he said, the good stuff. They keep the good stuff in the back in this room, you know. Whereas other antique dealers that didn't think they were stolen, they had them on display.

[Eric Morton]

With David's help, the detective zeroed in on three prominent antique dealers and one collector who they believed had conspired with the thieves to plunder the city's cemeteries. Search warrants in hand, they visited the shops and homes of each one. As expected, they turned up dozens of stolen cemetery artifacts at the collector's home, a 150-year-old Greek Revival townhouse that hosted election parties and festival fundraisers. Detectives seized $50,000 worth of goods. The collector admitted he'd bought some pieces from men in a white van, but claimed he didn't know they were stolen. If they're from a cemetery, he said, then that's where they belong. Then, based on a tip from David, the cops raided the Barristers Gallery, an outlet specializing in Southern folk art. They found human skulls in an authentic prison electric chair, but no cemetery artifacts. The dealer's home was a different story. In addition to stolen urns, benches and statues, the place was packed with creepy stuff, including shrunken heads, a witch riding a human rib, and a German helmet adorned with human body parts.

[David Damanisi]

On the one side of the helmet, we had what appeared to be human eyeballs and tissue, and each one was in a test tube. And then the back of the helmet was adorned with human skin. And so with this on a policeman's perspective, we have to say, okay, where did you get human body parts? He showed us a catalog where he bought human body parts from Haiti. He says, I don't know where they get these body parts. I just buy them. Here's the catalog. We saw the catalog.

[Eric Morton]

Their last stop was Patou's Antiques in the French Quarter. The owner, Peter Patou, wasn't there, but the cops searched anyway and hit the mother lode. Marble urns, iron mesh chairs, a five foot Italian marble statue of a lady holding a wreath. When Patou finally arrived, he denied that any of the items were stolen. He said he bought them at a European auction in Atlanta. But when the cops asked for the receipts, he said he didn't have them. In a police report, Eric noted that Patou showed signs of deceptive behavior, such as nervously clenching fists while speaking profusely stuttering and copiously sweating. He eventually broke down and admitted that, yes, he'd purchased the seized items from David Damenisi. In the end, all four men were booked with various charges. Desecrating graves, possessing stolen property, theft, and criminal conspiracy. The news sent shockwaves through the city. The police department received hundreds of phone calls from local residents.

[David Damanisi]

And we've got a yellow notepad that is full of people telling us, calling us. We had literally had to have the desk officer sat there with this pad taking callback numbers of people we had to call that said, oh, I know so and so's got this statue. I know so and so's got this. And they were ratting people out like there was no tomorrow.

[Eric Morton]

It turned out that few, if any antique dealers didn't have something that resembled a stolen cemetery item. Many of them voluntarily surrendered the pieces.

[David Damanisi]

Some of the antique dealers would call us and say, listen, I didn't buy this from these thieves, but because it looks so much like what the news Is advertising. We don't want anything to do with it because this could even possibly be something from somebody's tomb representing it. We don't want it. And they would give it to us. And we ended up having containers of this stuff that the cemeteries got together and put in to actually store all these items for us. Because the evidence room said, are you kidding me? How are we going to store all these hundreds of stuff that basically is pots. Pots and benches and statues?

[Eric Morton]

Within weeks of the arrests, the cops recovered more than half a million dollars worth of stolen cemetery goods. They held an open house for victims to come and reclaim their missing property. Among the recovered items were the two angels stolen from lucille prima's family tomb.

[David Damanisi]

We came to one of the cemeteries At a press conference, Lucas. Lucille prima family came out. The emotions involved, the crying, the hugging, the this, the that. Because to her, it was like a part of her soul came back, and that affected all of us.

[Eric Morton]

Around the same time, antique dealer Peter patou Held his own press conference to clear his name. He staged it outside his family's ancestral tomb at St. Louis Cemetery number three. I am astonished and outraged at the easy assumptions people made Regarding my integrity, he told a small crowd of reporters. Despite what he told detectives weeks earlier, he insisted he was innocent. He pointed out that he sat on the board of the preservation group save our cemeteries. A few days later, detectives got another tip. The anonymous informant claimed that after the investigation became public, they'd seen patou dump a statue into Bayou St. John, a sleepy waterway a few miles north of the french quarter.

[David Damanisi]

They gave us the exact location that he threw it. They gave us a description of his vehicle. So somebody basically ratted him out. One of his friends or somebody. That same statue was in an antique magazine in the front of his shop the year prior.

[Eric Morton]

As it happened, one of eric's supervisors at the nopd had his scuba diving license. He reluctantly agreed to look for the statue in the bayou's murky depths.

[David Damanisi]

And here he comes out the water like something out in leviathan, Coming out the water with the statue, with the head. And actually the head broke off, and he says, you got to be kidding me. And at that point, he was pissed.

[Eric Morton]

When he was charged for being the ringleader of the new orleans cemetery bandits, David damonisi already had three prior felony convictions. He faced a life sentence if convicted. He pleaded guilty to theft and conspiracy charges as part of a plea bargain and agreed to testify for the state. He was given five years under the deal. The collector and two of the antique dealers, however, maintained their innocence. The trial took place in May of 2000. The state argued that they were part of a criminal conspiracy.

[David Damanisi]

To prove conspiracy and to prove possession, you have to prove knowledge. And it's very difficult to prove what's in someone's head. And so the antique dealer's defense was very simply, well, we never told them to go to the cemetery and steal it. We never told them to go steal this. But you're literally making a list and order, hey, can you find me tube vases this color? Can you get me a bench that's a wire bench like this one, and can you go get me there? But no, in a court of law, if you got good lawyers, they can taint the jury enough to say, well, maybe he didn't really know 100% that it was stolen. Which is bullshit.

[Eric Morton]

In the end, the jury acquitted the collector and one of the antique dealers. Peter Patou, however, was convicted of conspiracy and two counts of possessing stolen property. He was sentenced to six years. Patu was the only defendant to testify in court, a fact Eric thinks did him in.

[David Damanisi]

Peter Patu's lawyer. He sat there and he told him shut up. But he couldn't do it because he had to tell his side of the story. And they saw right through it.

[Eric Morton]

Two years later, the Louisiana Court of Appeals reversed Patu's conviction and vacated his sentence, citing procedural errors. Today, he works as a historic property realtor. His efforts to restore his family's mid century home in Louisiana's sugar country was recently featured in an issue of the magazine Garden and Gun. How stolen cemetery statues from New Orleans wound up in flea markets and antique shops in far flung cities like LA, NY, and Atlanta was never proven. The NOPD had enough crime to worry about and they moved on. But Eric Morton couldn't let go of the case. He disappeared down rabbit holes. He demanded the department investigate a perceived connection between the cemetery thefts and a local child abduction ring. His supervisors quietly transferred him to the towing and recovery unit. He stayed with NOPD in various roles until his retirement. Seven years after the robberies, New Orleans cemeteries took another hit. Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina demolished hundreds of tombs, cracking some wide open and sending caskets and vaults bobbing down the city's streets. Today, the cemeteries are less a sanctuary for bereaved families than a destination for tourists and people shooting social media videos. According to the head of Savar Cemeteries, the city's historic graveyards are in desperate need of funding to repair and maintain the tombs. Without it, the cemeteries, like the people interred there may soon be lost to time. If you have information, story tips or feedback you'd like to share with the Gone south team, please email [e-mail] that's gone southpodcastmail.com and for bonus content, you can follow us on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram onsouthpodcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter on substack Gone south with Jed Lipinski Gone south is An Odyssey original podcast. It's created, written and narrated by me, Jed Lipinski. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss Berman, Maddie Spruce, Sprung Keyser, Tom Lipinski, Lloyd Lockridge, and me. Our story editors are Tom Lipinski, Maddy Sprung Keyser, and Joel Lovell. Gone south is edited by Chris Basel and Perry Crowell. It's mixed and mastered by Chris Basel. Production support from Ian Mont and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to J.D. crowley, Leah Reese, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Korten, and Hilary Shuff.

[Jen Hatmaker]

Imagine if you could ask someone anything you wanted about their finances. How much do you make? Who paid for that fancy dinner? What did your house actually cost? On every episode of what We Spend, a different guest opens up their wallets, opens up their lives, really, and tells us all about about their finances. For one week they tell us everything they spend their money on.

[David Damanisi]

My son slammed like $6 with the blueberries in five minutes.

[Jen Hatmaker]

This is a podcast about all the ways money comes into our lives and then leaves again. Which of course we all have a lot of feelings about.

[Eric Morton]

I really want these things.

[Emma Greed]

I want to own a house, I.

[Eric Morton]

Want to have a child. But this morning I really wanted a coffee.

[Jen Hatmaker]

Because whatever you are buying or not buying or selling, saving or spending, at the end of the day, money is always about more than your balance. I'm Courtney Harrell and this is what we spend, listen to and follow what We Spend An Odyssey original podcast available now. Wherever you get your podcast.