EXCLUSIVE
It was just after Christmas and employees were returning to work for the first time since the holiday break.
Everything at Motch Jewelers looked normal on that December 28, until longtime employee Tim Dwight opened the safe.
“It just took five seconds to realize what happened because I could see this hole and the bricks lying in the other building,” Dwight said. “They literally tore the inside of the safe out.”
For the first time since Covington’s oldest business opened in 1857 and right where it has operated since 1871, Motch Jewelers had been burglarized. This job was not done by run of the mill hoodlums, either. These guys were pros.
After apparently spending some time casing the store, which sits directly behind its iconic namesake street clock on the 600 block of Madison Avenue, two men slipped inside the adjacent German National Bank building which had been vacant and undergoing renovations. The building shares a wall with Motch. The men drilled a hole through the wall once, slipped a small camera inside and realized that they had the wrong spot.
A second time ended in the same result.
A third time, however, was money. The men managed to create a hole between the two buildings and directly into the jewelry store’s safe, the same safe that the building had been practically built around, the safe that had protected generations of jewelry in the same corner for more than 140 years.
Hall’s Safe & Lock Company built this safe for Motch in 1871/RCN
Once the hole was created, the men, donning hooded sweatshirts and hats, ransacked it with tire irons and took everything.
“It looked like they vacuumed the safe,” said store manager Shirley Alley.
When the dust settled and the loss was counted, the burglary was worth a dollar amount well into the six figures. Because the investigation is still ongoing, the exact amount was not released.
Covington Police continue to work with agencies across the country because investigators believe the two men who were captured on camera at an ATM across the street and by one at the federal courthouse in the rear, as well as by a camera inside the German Bank building, are part of a larger ring of professionals.
Alley described the heist as something out of the film Ocean’s 11.
“We’re looking at every case that is even remotely close to this one,” said Police Chief Spike Jones. “We realize we’re dealing with professionals. This isn’t some group that decided to do a smash and grab. These folks are very methodical and they do their homework.” Jones said that he could not think of any theft in the city that resulted in a loss in the amount of the one suffered by Motch.
Details about the investigation, even a year later, remain scant. Alley said a recent jewelry theft at a store near Seattle where thieves cut holes into the rooves of two neighboring businesses and then the back of the safe through an adjoining wall, making off with a million dollars worth of jewelry.
Jones said that he is encouraged by some of the reports he hears from investigators working these cases.
Like the victim in that theft as reported by media out west, the Motch Jewelers family knew that the hardest part would be telling their customers who lost important family heirlooms and other treasured pieces in the Covington heist. “We cried at every one of them,” Alley said of the phone calls that she and her staff had to make. “Every piece was a personal piece.”
She said that all of her customers were “wonderful” in handling the news and that all the cases have finally settled with insurance, a process that took a long time because Alley said that she refused to settle until her customers were satisfied.
More than the missing pieces, though, the burglary took a toll on the business. One longtime employee was so stressed by the knowledge that she had been watched by criminals that she ultimately retired, Alley said.
For the first time since the business opened its doors a century and a half ago, the Motch family, which is still heavily involved in the business, considered closing it down for good.
“We’ve been struggling down here for a long time,” Alley said. The landmark business has managed to survive the decline of Covington’s once thriving downtown. In recent years, a renaissance effort has not moved swiftly enough to return the remaining longstanding businesses to their glory days.
Shortly after the burglary, David Motch, chairman of the board, issued a statement. “…we are all a little shook up and saddened,” he said. “We all feel like our home was burglarized.”
That sentiment was echoed during an interview with The River City News. “As shocking and devastating as it was, it was an intrusion,” Alley said. “We all acted like it was our home.”
Alley said that ultimately, the family was convinced not to close the store’s doors on a negative note. On the bright side, if there is one during such a crime, the heist followed an unusually strong Christmas so inventory at the time was low, and many of the pieces that could have been stolen had been picked up as holiday gifts. Turning lemons into lemonade, Motch seized the opportunity to replenish its shelves with more new merchandise. It upgraded its already world-class security system and a member of the Motch family rebuilt the interior of the safe. Dwight, who was considering a retirement, remained on staff part-time.
Some of the improvements since the burglary have been directly outside the business. At the time, there was no one around to hear any possible noise during the burglary, but in the year since, four nearby buildings have undergone or are undergoing renovations and three of them will include new residences. All of them will have new businesses.
Motch Jewelers decided to stick around to see Covington’s possible comeback through. “I still believe Covington is coming back so why not have the oldest business here still be here to serve the community as it always has?,” Alley asked.
“We’re still here. We didn’t let that stop us. We pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and kept on going.”
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Story & photos by Michael Monks, editor & publisher of The River City News