It's not every day someone steals from a funeral home. And it's not every day the stolen items are recovered.
This is the story of Chaisity Paddio-Owens. She is the owner of Mortuary Center of Southwest Louisiana in Jennings.
Paddio-Owens said she recently opened her family business in April and was devastated to discover someone stole from her property.
"The lawnmower was parked here," Paddio-Owens said. "They had to have come with more than one person!"
With no surveillance cameras installed at the time of the incident, Paddio-Ownes believes the culprit must have been determined, considering the size of the lawnmower.
"They pulled it," Paddio-Owens said. "They had track marks all the way. You can still see...It was drug out and from there they opened my gate, they pulled it all the way to the side, all the way to the front and loaded it up on a tractor and hauled that way."
While starting a new business comes with several challenges, Paddio-Owens said she would've never expected something like this to happen.
Now, she's giving credit to her family, friends and strangers on Facebook who helped spread the word about her missing lawnmower.
Paddio-Owens' mother was the first to discover the lawnmower disappeared on Tuesday.
However, her daughter was quickly reunited with the lawnmower on Saturday, shortly after her cousin stepped up.
"One of my cousins called and said he was in Elton," Paddio-Owens said. "He said while he was in Elton, someone was riding around, trying to sell a lawnmower…So he wanted to make sure it was mine and he was going to try and get it back for me."
To her surprise, Paddio-Ownes' lawnmower was returned safe and sound on Saturday morning, but that wasn't all.
With the help of several monetary donations and Facebook posts, Paddio-Owens now has a 360-degree surveillance camera system and will be expanding her funeral home services soon.
In the meantime, she said she's fortunate for all of the help along the way.
