Second safe stolen from Sixth Floor Museum

Second safe stolen from Sixth Floor Museum
by REBECCA LOPEZ
WFAA Radio
Posted on May 10, 2010 at 10:34 PM

DALLAS — News 8 has learned that there was a second safe stolen from the Sixth Floor Museum in downtown Dallas last week.

Inside that safe? Possible documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and jewelry that may have some connection to his wife, Jacqueline.

The Dallas County Sheriff’s Department told the public about one safe that was nearly stolen from the museum during the May 4 break-in. It was recovered almost immediately, dangling from a winch on the back of a stolen pickup truck.

But during that burglary, a second safe was removed in what now appears to have been an inside job. Dallas police found it in a park in southeast Dallas.

A police report said there were bags and keys from the museum inside that safe, but it also said that JFK documents and jewelry possibly related to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were missing.

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price suggested that the perpetrators had intimate knowledge of the museum that is a repository for an invaluable collection of materials related to the Kennedy assassination. “Someone would have to know, first of all, the location,” he said.

Police now believe that “someone” is 30-year-old Patrick Cleveland, who was arrested by Dallas County Sheriff’s Department deputies last Friday.

Cleveland worked for Platinum Security, the private firm that provides security at the Sixth Floor Museum. He is now free on bond.

“I do believe it was an inside job, but I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Cleveland told News 8.

He said he often saw other employees taking pictures of the museum safes and other contents with their camera phones during his seven-month stint as a security guard.

“I pass by those safes every day. I know it would take a tow truck or a ton of people to even move them,” Cleveland said. “The safe should have been bolted to the ground.”

But neither safe was bolted down and both were removed from the premises in the pre-dawn burglary.

The Sixth Floor Museum had no comment about their security guard being arrested on a theft charge. Nor did it have anything to say about the second safe or its contents.

Following the burglary, the museum maintained that its entire collection was “safe and secure.”

The Sheriff’s Department says it is not making any comments on this case at this time because they plan to make other arrests.

http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/Arrest-made-in-Sixth-Floow-Museum-break-in-93316154.html