Posts: 43357 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 03-06-2020 07:57 AM
A thief who broke into two dozen storage units in Houston stole items belonging to Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham, reports NBC affiliate KPRC.
Walter Cunningham, a retired NASA astronaut, was one of the victims. He said he kept space and family memorabilia in his storage.
"Documentation when I was with NASA for eight years," Cunningham said, who was the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 7. "We expected it to be secure and looked out for."
A few days ago, Cunningham said he received a harrowing call from employees with the storage company informing him that something might have been wrong with their lock.
Cunningham and his wife, Dot, found that their items were tossed around, and the storage unit was ransacked.
AstronautBrian Member
Posts: 289 From: Louisiana Registered: Jan 2006
posted 03-06-2020 08:26 AM
I doubt the thieves knew/know what they have because they are probably not the brightest crayons in the box, but if anything rare or unusual shows up in an auction somewhere, Mr. Cunningham should be informed in case it is a stolen item.
Rick Mulheirn Member
Posts: 4188 From: England Registered: Feb 2001
posted 03-06-2020 09:40 AM
Absolutely.
nasamad Member
Posts: 2132 From: Essex, UK Registered: Jul 2001
posted 03-06-2020 10:33 AM
I'm sure if Dot and Walt were to share a list of what items were taken with the cS community we'd all keep an eye on sales and auctions for them.
It's in all our interests to ensure we don't buy stolen items even innocently as there's no protection in those cases, it returns to the rightful owner I believe.
I can remember a guy having a multisigned book stolen at Burbank many years ago, I only met him once but still remember his name and always kept an eye out for that book. Glad to say Robert told me he finally got it back years later.
Hopefully we could make the Cunningham's possessions too hot to handle.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 43357 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 03-06-2020 11:49 AM
I reached out to Walt and let him know our desire to help. If and when he can share more information, I'll pass it along it here.
p51 Member
Posts: 1657 From: Olympia, WA Registered: Sep 2011
posted 03-06-2020 03:57 PM
Stealing his stuff is like stealing a fine piece of art. You can't sell it anywhere, as anybody who might give what it's worth would know it was stolen. That means the people you could fence it to would be a very small group indeed.
I also agree the people who did this had a clue what it was. I shudder at the thought of what might happen once the thieves learn/have learned they can't do anything with all that.
GACspaceguy Member
Posts: 2502 From: Guyton, GA Registered: Jan 2006
posted 03-06-2020 05:14 PM
Absolutely terrible. I agree our community (including auction houses) is the only place items could be sold for any value so we certainly can help in the recovery task.
posted 03-06-2020 07:57 AM
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