Stolen musky photo finds its way home
Just about every day a customer asks Chris Roepke about the musky photo stolen from the men’s restroom wall at his restaurant. Now he can tell them the good news. The wavy and weathered fish pic was found about two miles away.
On Monday, I received a call from a guy who read the column I wrote in May about a bold thief who peeled the photo from a frame and walked out of the Nite Owl Drive In, 830 E. Layton Ave.
The caller, who said his name is Jon, was visiting a neighbor in Bay View on Saturday. There, sitting on a table, was a framed photo that looked like the stolen one. The black-and-white picture shows a northern Wisconsin bar owner named Louie Spray posing with what he claimed was a world-record musky from 1949.
Jon said, ‘Where did you get that?’ He told me straight out, ‘I took it out of the bathroom at Nite Owl.’”
The neighbor, a fishing enthusiast, told Jon he thought the frame looked like it was going to fall in the toilet, so he assumed no one cared about the photo. He was wrong on both counts. The photo has been a popular sight at the restaurant since a customer gave it to Chris about 15 years ago, and he insists the frame was screwed to the wall.
Anyway, Jon says to the guy, “Dude, you gotta give this back.”
The next day, the man called Jon and told him to come pick up the photo. In the meantime, he had taken it to Walgreens to make two copies, one for each of them.
“Get it back to him. Just don’t tell him who I am,” the reformed thief told him.
Jon was hesitant about returning the photo to the Nite Owl himself. He wasn’t sure if the owner would give him a free cheeseburger or call the cops.
So he turned over the picture to me at a meeting — let’s call it a secret meeting — in the Journal Sentinel lobby. Killers have been known to surrender to newspaper reporters; I got a fish photo handed to me in a Walgreens envelope.
Chris was excited to hear the news. As the months passed, it seemed unlikely the photo would ever be recovered. “I’m actually in shock at the moment. Like holy cow,” he said.
Without hesitation, Chris said, “That’s 100% it,” when I handed him the 8-by-10 photo Tuesday morning at his diner. The yellowed tape on the back of the photo matched markings on the frame perfectly.
Chris returned the photo to the frame, securing it with new tape. Its days in the bathroom are over. He put it in a glass display case near the front counter. Copies of the same photo are easily available on the internet, but Chris would rather that his original not disappear again.
The frame also holds a thermometer and a card
that says, “Weight 69 lbs. 11 oz. Girth 311⁄4 inches. Length 5 feet 31⁄2 inches. Courtesy of Spray’s Bar, Rice Lake, Wisconsin.” The National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward stands by Louie Spray’s record, but many anglers have disputed it. We’ll leave it alone for now.
It pleases Jon to know the photo is back home at the Nite Owl, where he sometimes enjoys a burger. “What’s right is right,” he said.
Chris holds no grudge against the man who made off with his musky.
“It’s about forgiveness at the end of the day.”