Officials at a Burnaby church are confounded after a pair of bizarre break-ins over the last few days that saw an office ransacked, candles lit on the altar, dance tights filched, a grocery bag of vegetables left in the pews and a minister’s sweater stolen – and then returned.
Willingdon Heights Community Church, a heritage church on the corner of Madison Avenue and Parker Street in the Willingdon Heights neighbourhood, got a burglar alarm for the first time in its 66-year history this week after break-ins late Wednesday or early Thursday and late Saturday or early Sunday.
“Everybody’s a little bit more paranoid,” Willingdon Heights United Church secretary Bruce Cowburn told the NOW.
When a minister came into the church at 6:30 a.m. Thursday to prepare for an early morning service, he found the front doors had been kicked in.
“The doors have to be replaced totally,” Cowburn said.
Based on the damage and what was taken, he suspects young vandals are responsible.
“In my office, which is upstairs and away from everything, I had had my sweater hanging on the back of my chair, and it wasn’t there, but there was a kid’s hoodie, and a bag of candies I had in one of the closets had been ripped open and there was candy wrappers all over,” he said.
The culprits trashed his office, busted five interior doors, tagged a bulletin board, lit candles in the sanctuary and pulled a bunch of equipment out of an electronics room.
They didn’t take any computers, choosing instead four guitars, three wireless mikes, six bar clamps that were being used to fixed a couple of the pews and packages of dance tights that had been stored at the church by a dance group that uses the gym on Wednesday nights.
“It’s just strange,” Cowburn said.
Things got stranger Sunday morning.
Cowburn noticed things had been moved around in the sanctuary and thought another user group had made the changes for a service.
But they told him they had found it that way when they came in in the morning.
An inspection of the front door, which neither had used to get in, revealed the door had once again been damaged.
Tapestries had been taken off the wall. One large one had been rolled up, clamped with the bar clamps stolen earlier and placed on the altar behind the cross.
“The clamps that I was so surprised were missing, they had them clamped around these tapestries on the altar,” Cowburn said. “They moved the communion table to the centre of the church, lit all the votives (candles) again, put a chair and one of the guitars that was stolen back there. My sweater that was on the back of the chair in my office upstairs, was on the back of this chair…. I had to do a second take on it because I didn’t notice my sweater right away. Moving the chair and this table, I went, ‘There’s my sweater!’”
In the pew, the culprits had also left a discarded McDonald’s bag and a grocery bag full of vegetables, including broccoli and tomatoes.
“The RCMP guy that came in Sunday afternoon asked me if it was a hate crime, and I said, ‘No, I’m sure it’s kids,’” Cowburn said. “If it was a hate crime, people would be graffitiing the place, I think.”
Cowburn said the damage to the church will total about $15,000.
Burnaby RCMP is investigating.
“We would obviously like anybody with information about this to contact us because, at this stage of the game, there are no suspects,” Burnaby RCMP Cpl. Daniela Panesar told the NOW.
Contact the Burnaby RCMP at 604-294-7922 or Crime Stoppers at 1-888-222-8477 (TIPS).
Correction: This article orginally identified Bruce Cowburn as a Willingdon Heights United Church minister. He is, in fact, a retired minister and works as the church secretary.
