The 17th-century painting was donated to the town by a rich family over a century ago and is a source of pride for many local residents. were informed by the police that there were some rumors about the fact the painting could be stolen." "Even if I am in the town council of the municipality, only the mayor and the priest. I was not informed," town council member Francesco Marchese told NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Out of around 8,500 residents of Castelnuovo Magra in Liguria, only a few knew about the switch. Town leaders and the Carabinieri, Italy's military police, had been tipped off about the planned heist and replaced the original painting, Pieter Brueghel the Younger's The Crucifixion, with a replica. To their surprise, the painting they stole was actually a fake. Art thieves tried to steal a painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1638), but the artwork, titled The Crucifixion, had been switched out for a copy.Īrt thieves stole a Flemish masterpiece valued at 3 million euros from a small Italian town church last week. I never thought this day would come.”įollow NBCBLK on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. “To tell you the truth, I never saw this day back in 2020. It’s been a hard fight, but God is good,” she told reporters Wednesday. Now, in a statement following the verdict, Cooper-Jones admitted that she never believed she’d see the men convicted. He soon recused himself but defended the actions of the McMichaels and Bryan, advising police that “he did not see grounds for the arrest of any of the individuals involved in Mr. George Barnhill briefly took over the case. Just days after the shooting, Jackie Johnson, the Brunswick-area district attorney, recused herself from the case because she had worked with Gregory McMichael, a former Glynn County police officer, for decades. The lawsuit has been stalled amid the trial. Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, accused Glynn County, Georgia, police and two local prosecutors of conspiring to cover up Arbery’s murder and protect the men involved in his death.Ī $1 million lawsuit filed earlier this year alleges that the police department and officials with the Brunswick County District Attorney’s Office worked together to paint Arbery as a violent criminal and absolve the McMichaels and Bryan of wrongdoing. News of the killing largely remained under wraps in the weeks that followed. Gregory McMichael and William Bryan were found not guilty of the malice murder charge. Travis McMichael was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit a felony.
#Painting with has it leaked trial#
However, Travis McMichael admitted during the trial that Arbery hadn’t shown a weapon or threatened him or spoken to him at all before he shot him. The defense had argued that the men thought Arbery was a burglar and were attempting to make a citizen’s arrest and they acted in self-defense. It took outrage and pressure to make this happen.” But never forget that this is not an example of the justice system working. “It’s devastating that these guiltily verdicts feel like a miracle.”Īnother person tweeted, “I’m happy Ahmaud Arbery’s killers are cooked. “They almost got away with it,” one social media user tweeted. Then, Arbery and another man appear to scuffle and two more shots are fired.Īfter the verdict, social media platforms lit up with comments from users who said the case wouldn’t have gone to trial at all if the video hadn’t thrust the case into the national spotlight and sparked an outcry. He is shown running around the vehicle, and a shot is fired. In the video, Arbery jogs down a road as a white pickup truck blocks his path. Only after video footage of the fatal shooting leaked online May 5, 2020, did authorities arrest the trio on felony murder charges. Bryan filmed the fatal encounter on his cellphone. Travis McMichael shot Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, with a shotgun at close range. The McMichaels and Bryan were not arrested until months after they chased Arbery in a pickup truck in Satilla Shores, their neighborhood near Brunswick, on Feb. “A young Black man would have been taken from his family and community with no one held responsible. “I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but what if that video had not come out several months later?” Michael Irvin, a teacher from the Orlando, Florida, area told NBC News outside the courthouse Wednesday. But the three might never have been indicted in the first place had it not been for a leaked video that prompted calls for attention to his death. On Wednesday, an almost all-white jury found Travis McMichael, his father, Gregory McMichael, and neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan guilty in the murder of Arbery in Georgia. Nearly two years before a jury convicted three white men in the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, authorities had said there was no need to arrest them.