Yamaha Organ Stolen on Easter Is Recovered

It took a week, but the LAPD said it has cracked the case of the missing organ.

The $33,000 Yamaha organ was stolen from the Hollywood Bowl’s orchestra pit after Easter sunrise services on April 20. One week later, the bandits left it in the parking lot of St. Clare Catholic Church in Santa Clarita in the middle of the night.

The unusual theft prompted service organizers to hit the airwaves of local media in the last week, begging for the organ’s safe return. A group of Dominican nuns in Hollywood spent the week praying that the thieves would give the instrument back.

Norma Foster, the producer of the services, feared the organ would be dismantled and shipped to Asia, where there is a market for high-end organs.

“Yamaha told us they were surprised it was still in the country,” Foster said.

The case was solved by Los Angeles Police Department Det. “Pac Man” Packer. The nickname, Packer said, is a tribute to the famous video game creature that gobbles up ghosts and fruit while navigating mazes. “The bad guys don’t run very fast,” he said. “I eat them up.”

Packer said he and his partner, Det. Steve Bucher, received a tip about who may have stolen the organ last week and arrested a suspect Friday in North Hollywood. Michael B. Ernardin, 39, of Los Angeles is being held on suspicion of grand theft.

The police then got a second tip that the remaining suspects had realized they probably couldn’t find a buyer for the stolen organ, and instead had dropped it off at a church.

“We knew it was in Santa Clarita, and we knew it was going to show up in Santa Clarita somewhere and that’s exactly what happened,” Packer said.

Sure enough, the organ was deposited sometime in the wee hours Sunday morning. Police hauled it away just hours before people arriving for the 6:30 a.m. Mass at St. Clare would have stumbled on a 4 1/2-foot, 1,000-pound organ occupying a parking space.

A St. Clare official said this is the first time that he can remember stolen goods being left at the church.

Los Angeles Police Lt. Ray Lombardo said he thinks the thieves may have had a change of heart after seeing the media attention given to the stolen organ. “Even bad guys have a conscience sometimes,” he said.

He also said that one or two more arrests will likely be made.

One reason the organizers of the Easter service were upset is that the organ did not belong to them. Bob Ralston, the longtime organist for the “Lawrence Welk Show,” has lent it to the service for the last 16 years.

Foster, the producer of the show, said she had faith that the organ mystery would be solved.

The cloistered Dominican nuns at the Monastery of the Angels in Hollywood had long enjoyed the sound of the organ as the music from the service wafted into the neighborhood -- and promised Foster they would pray steadfastly for the organ’s return.

When Foster received word the organ was safe, she immediately called the nuns: “I told them to get off their knees because their prayer work is done.”