SAN MARCOS- Texas State police received reports of the robbing of 10 vintage music posters from the “Homegrown: Austin Music Posters 1967 – 1982” exhibit in the Wittliff Collections in the Alkek Library Sunday evening.
As student employee at the Wittliff Collection, Meghan Werner, 21, of Wimberley, left the exhibit unattended for 20 minutes, a nearby witness saw a man enter with a large duffle bag. The 10 stolen vintage music posters, totaling $45,000 in value, made up a collection of 140 music posters from bands who performed in Austin during the 1960’s-1980’s.
“We’ve never had something like this happen before, but honestly, there’s no glass casing to prevent someone from stealing a couple posters if they really wanted to,” Werner said. “They’re literally just hanging on the wall.”
Nearby witness, Tamika Williams, 22, of Austin, descripted the subject as a man with a beard and a ponytail down to the middle of his back wearing a green hat and black cargo shorts. He is believed to be 25 to 30 years old and a possible employee of the university.
The suspect’s easy escape was due to a failure in the security system. Security alarms were not active because of weekly routine system checks and according to the technician for Texas State Alert Systems, Carl Evans, 49, of New Braunfels, because the alarms are synced, sometimes the camera shut off.
“We don’t want to disturb anyone, so we do [system checks] when traffic is slow,” Evans said. “…We don’t advertise when we’re going to check alarms. Seems like something only an employee would know.”
Texas State Police officer, Doug Simpson, 51, of San Marcos, recalls this to be the first incident with stolen art from the Wittliff Collections. However the University Police Department are on the lookout for the suspect and the 10 stolen posters.
“We contacted several local pawnshops in the area in case the suspect tries to make a quick buck or sells the posters online,” Simpson said. “Whoever is responsible is looking at felony grand larceny charges.”
With any information pertaining to this case, contact the Texas State University Police Department.
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