By Jessie Burchette
jburchette@salisburypost.com
ROCKWELL ó Nearly two months after someone stole family keepsakes from his parents’ home, David Allison hasn’t given up on getting them back.
Allison continues to run a classified advertisement in the Post with a photo of one of the stolen tables.
And he’s keeping an eye on Internet sites. Allison has already spotted a table on Craigslist identical to one that was stolen, but ran into an Internet roadblock.
The Allison homeplace is on Lowerstone Church Road. When his mother died in November 2007, the family divided up the property. But with some family members living thousands of miles away, getting the items to them posed a problem.
Since Allison had no plans to sell the house, several items were left in the house until the family could claim them ó or they could be shipped.
Allison, who lives on Depot Street, periodically checked on the house and contents.
On Feb. 23, he found several items of furniture missing, including a solid maple marble-top table and matching coffee table and sofa table. A cedar chest, telephone table and some jewelry were also taken.”Each one of us got a piece of furniture. Value-wise they may not be worth a whole lot, but there’s a lot of sentimental value,” he said recently. He estimated the whole set of tables may not be worth more than $500 or $600, but they mean a lot more to the family.
He notified the Rockwell Police Department and Chief Hugh Bost investigated, but he hasn’t turned up any suspects or the stolen items.
Allison hopes someone with information about the crime will see the classified ad and call police.
Allison and police briefly thought they might have found the table. An exact match showed up on Craigslist with a Raleigh listing.
“It looked just like it,” Allison said.
He and Bost wanted to get a closer look at the Craigslist table.
Bost said he jumped through the right hoops, eventually getting to someone who was supposed to be in charge of the Web site’s fraud division.
Bost and Allison wanted to get the address and contact number for the person offering the table for sale, hoping to get a chance to inspect it.
“Craigslist said we could bid on it if we wanted to,” Bost said.
The table offered online could be Allison’s and be in Rowan County, Bost said.
“Just because it was a Raleigh listing doesn’t mean it’s in Raleigh,” he said. “It could be anywhere. It’s possible it could be his table.”
Allison isn’t giving up.
He’ll keep running the ad, hoping someone will help him reclaim his family’s heirlooms.
Anyone with information is asked to call police at 704-213-4863.