By Thomas Tracy
Call the Collettes’ Bensonhurst home on West 7th Street between Avenues O and P, and the answering machine greeting will remind you to “Please treat people the way you wish to be treated.” “Because what goes around, comes around,” the message states. Bobby Collette said that his family has had that particular message for years. But the message has a special resonance now, as cops continue to look for a drunken vandal who destroyed a three-and-a-half foot statue of Saint Theresa standing outside their home for over two decades. Police said the suspect, described as a white male in his late 50s to early 60s, came walking down the street at about 7 a.m. Thursday morning, April 14 and ripped the 100-plus pound statue from its cement housing. Witnesses told police that the man took the statue to the middle of the street, raised it over his head and hurled it onto the ground, shattering it to pieces. He then picked up the larger pieces, raised them over his head and threw them to the ground, turning the heavy statue into nothing but pieces of rubble, officials said. If the suspect is arrested, he may be charged with a bias crime if police could determine that he destroyed the statue out of hatred for Catholics. “Nobody knows why he did it, but it was totally wrong,” said Bobby Collette, who lives at the West 7th Street home with his mother and father. Collette bought the statue for his mother 24 years ago, when the family moved to Bensonhurst from Midwood, he remembered. “It was one of the first thing we did on the new house,” he said. “My mother’s name is Theresa and when we bought the house, she wanted to buy a statue of St. Theresa.” Collette was a teenager at the time when he saved his money and bought the statue, which became a neighborhood staple over the decades. “People would come by and pray in front of it,” he said. “Sometimes they would take the loose change in their pockets and throw it down in front of the statue.” His mother would take the change to St. Athanasius Church on Bay Parkway, put the money in the poor box and “light a candle for them.” “[My mother] can’t believe that someone would do this,” he said. “She’s in shock.” Nestled between two rose bushes and illuminated with a light, the statue was a bright focal point for the block, Bobby said. “There was something special about the statue,” he said. “The rose bushes would grow directly toward St. Theresa. She would attract the roses right to her.” Neighbors who witnessed the vandal break the statue, as well as damage the rose bushes and two parked cars, said that the suspect was “apparently drunk.” The next day, however, the suspect, who reportedly lived on the block at one time, walked by the house. When Collette’s neighbors pointed him out, he gave a half-hearted apology, apparently indicating that he knew what he had done. As Bobby tried to call police, the suspect ran off. Some residents tried to chase after him, but lost him near a nearby train station. He hasn’t shown his face since. “He knows we’re after him and he knows what he did,” said Collette, who at first thought that the suspect might have been too drunk to be responsible for his actions. Bobby, a parishioner at Our Lady of Pity Church in Staten Island, said that Monsignor Philip Franceschini is willing to replace the statue with one of St. Theresa from his church. The family has yet to take the monsignor up on his offer. Cops are asking anyone with information regarding this incident to call the 62nd Precinct at (718) 236-2611. All calls will be kept confidential.
