The head of a large bronze statue stolen last month from an Oakville park has been found at a Burlington smelting plant.
Halton Region police have charged one man in connection with the missing memorial of noted Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.
The 80-kilogram head turned up at Thomson Metals & Disposal last month. Metal recycler Gary Thomson bought the "unusual piece" and smaller fragments of bronze not knowing the Oakville statue had been stolen, the Toronto Star reported.
Thomson became aware of the theft after reading it in the newspaper.
He bought the pieces on Dec. 12 from two men who told him they were disposing of it on behalf of the Town of Oakville.
Thomson called police, and while his employees were being questioned by detectives, two men who had been selling him scrap metal for months arrived at the shop, the Star reported.
The men panicked, put the car in reverse and tried to drive off, but officers stopped them in the parking lot, Thomson said.
He said the men told his staff they would bring more bronze pieces after the initial sale, but didn't return until Tuesday.
"We kind of stuck (the head) in the corner because it was a conversation piece," Thomson told the newspaper.
"We've seen statue pieces but nothing of this quality. It was a beautiful looking piece, but it was cut up with a saw ... even the head had cuts through it."
Police are still hunting for the rest of the five-metre statue.
Officials at the Taras Shevchenko Museum in Toronto fear the remainder has already been melted down.
"We're bitterly disappointed," said Bill Harasym, president of the Shevchenko foundation.
The two-tonne statue, chopped off at the feet and hauled away, had been reported missing to police on Saturday by a visitor to the park.
Thomson said he paid $3.74 per kilogram for the bronze. He said the cost of all base metals have increased, which may have been the motive in the crime.
Police arrested one man charged in connection with the theft.
Curtis Rae, 36, of Oakville, is charged with one count of possessing stolen property over $5,000.
The statue of Shevchenko, donated by what was then the Soviet republic of Ukraine, was unveiled July 1, 1951 to mark the 60th anniversary of Ukrainian-Canadian settlement.
Taras Shevchenko, who died in 1861 at the age of 47, was a poet and a painter and his literary heritage is considered to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature.
