'These are our babies': Heart band member pleads for help finding instruments stolen in AC
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (WPVI) -- The rock band Heart's visit to the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City last weekend was memorable for all the wrong reasons after two of their instruments were stolen.
On Thursday afternoon, Action News reporter Caroline Goggin had a chance to speak with band member Nancy Wilson.
Heart is led by Wilson and her sister, Ann, who have made music together since the '70s and have had hits like "Magic Man," "Crazy on You," and "Alone."
MORE | Pleasantville man accused of stealing 2 instruments belonging to rock band Heart in Atlantic City
Wilson said the band's crew and gear got to the Atlantic City casino last Thursday. On Friday, when the band members arrived, they realized two of their instruments were missing.
"The CCTV cameras revealed that overnight at two in the morning, someone with a hood on had come and taken them," Wilson explained.
Action News obtained surveillance video from a jewelry store across the street from the casino that shows the suspect carrying the two stolen instruments around 2:20 a.m. Friday.
"One of them is a mandolin that has been in our world for 20 years," Wilson said. "The other one is a one-of-a-kind, hand-built, custom-made telecaster baritone guitar."
Wilson said that the guitar was specially made for her by one of her friends. As for the other instrument, it is a vintage 1966 Gibson EM-50 mandolin that band member Paul Moak has played for over 25 years.
"These are our babies. They are our pals. We travel with these guys. We bring them home. We record in the studio with these beautiful instruments," Wilson said. "A lot of them have a long history in our lives."
On Thursday, the Atlantic City Police Department announced Garfield Bennett, 57, of Pleasantville, New Jersey, was arrested and charged with burglary and theft in connection with the case.
While police were able to track down the suspect, they said he sold one of the instruments and, at this time, they don't know where the other instrument is.
Responding to the arrest, Wilson told Action News, "We've got the guy that took them. So we're hoping whoever has them now will reach into their kindest, deepest place in their heart, and we can get those instruments back to their home where they belong."
Wilson thanked local police for their work in taking the suspect into custody. She is now offering a reward for anyone who can return the instruments to the band, no questions asked.
She described the mandolin and guitar as "priceless" and "irreplaceable."
"This is not just stuff," she said. "The way these instruments sound. These sounds you could hardly get anywhere else."
In neighboring Pleasantville, New Jersey, Joanne Schilling told Action News she is keeping an eye out for the mandolin and guitar at her music store, called Pleasantville Music Shoppe.
"You don't know if someone is going to pop in or call," she said. "So I am on the lookout to call the police and hopefully they'll get them back."
Schilling, who owns and operates the music business her father started in 1938, is urging whoever now has the instruments to give them up.
"I was really heartbroken to hear somebody did that," she said. "These instruments are really irreplaceable."
