Laguna Beach : Youth Finds, Returns Missing Church Statue

A 17-year-old Laguna Beach High School student has found and returned a valuable shepherd statue that disappeared from a church’s outdoor Nativity scene over the Christmas holidays.

Mark Boothe is the good Samaritan, according to Father Robert Tressler, associatepastor of St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church.

“We are so thankful,” Tressler said. “It would have been impossible to replace.”

During the first weekend in January, Boothe said, he was riding his bike near the reservoir when his hat blew off, and he got off his bike to retrieve it. When he picked it up, he said, he noticed the toes of the shepherd sticking out of the bushes.

“I knew it was worth something. The thing looked really expensive and when you turned it over it said ‘Made in Italy’ on it,” he said. The life-sized statue is valued at $2,000 and is irreplaceable Tressler said.

It was too heavy to carry home on his bike, Booth said. So he came back later to haul it home, he said.

He said he kept it in his room for about three weeks, until he stubbed his toe on it enough that he knew it was time to find out where it belonged. St. Catherine of Siena, he said, is the nearest church to the reservoir.

“Also, my dad ragged on me so I put a note on (the church’s) door and they called me,” Boothe said. “I wanted to give it back. It’s a really neat work of art.”

Boothe is not a parishioner of St. Catherine’s. “I’m an atheist,” he said.