Following a burglary early on Wednesday morning, the owner of Showcase Jewellery Store on Masterton’s Queen St is “appreciative of the support” from locals as she continues to pick up the pieces.
With the help of friends and family, owner Vania Ireland has worked hard for the past two days to get the store back up and running, and many people have come in to offer support by way of cakes, chocolate, and words of sympathy.
“We had co-workers, their boyfriends, my son, and other friends and family all work to get the store open,” she said.
“We had Ziggy’s Glass and Fisher Windows Wairarapa replace the glass and grates on the front window on Wednesday; they are now working on the display cabinets.
“I was thankful as I could go home and sleep at night because all the windows were done.”
Ireland was still tallying up what goods were stolen when she spoke to the Times-Age but she estimated that watches with a combined value of $4000 had been taken or sufficiently damaged by small shards of glass when the display cabinets were smashed that they can’t be sold.
Despite the setback of the theft, however, Ireland wanted to make clear that “I have always been a determined person, and it’s not holding me back”.
Meanwhile, in their ongoing hunt for the burglars, for which they have “strong lines of enquiry”, police have been contacting surrounding businesses for security footage, which Ireland said has proven to be frustrating.
“A store on the corner had a camera, but it was a moving one and wasn’t pointed in the right direction,” she said.
“There was also a camera at a store on the other side of the road that would have caught a lot of detail, but it was broken.”
However, evidence that the criminals “weren’t particularly smart” was found in the form of a drop of blood one of them left in the store, in addition to the metal tyre iron that they abandoned after the break-in.
