Norma Gademer is a retired Parma nun and is hoping the person who took her heirloom banjo from a now closed music store will do the right thing.
Gademer said she took her 1922 Gibson tenor banjo to the Musicland location on Pearl Road in June to have the instrument appraised and potentially sold at the store.
But when Musicland's owner suddenly passed away and the store closed a few days later, her banjo went missing, apparently stolen from the building.
"It was given to me when I was just eight or nine years old and we had it in the family all this time," said Gadermer. "I went into the store with good faith and came out with nothing. So I thought I would try to sell it, thinking I might get a couple of hundred dollars, never knowing what the value was."
According to Gademer's neighbor and retired Cleveland police detective Michele Rivera, it appears the banjo is worth a lot more than a few hundred dollars.
Rivera said her research showed that model banjo could easily be worth thousands, perhaps as much as $60,000.
Rivera said Musicland isn't doing anything to help compensate Gademer for her loss, and didn't even file a report with the Parma police department to investigate.
"You have a victim here why was no police report made, if there were other items stolen, that means there's other victims out there," said Rivera.
News 5 placed phone calls to the Musicland attorney and tried to reach the wife of the Musicland owner, but so far we haven't been given a response.
Meanwhile, Gademer, who worked with youth at Parmadale and who is a member of the Sisters of Charity, is praying that the person who took her banjo will do the right thing.
"I hope that they would come forward and give me my property back."
