Homeless veteran recovers stolen purse, priceless photos

Homeless veteran recovers stolen purse, priceless photos

By Lisa Guerriero/ melrose@wickedlocal.com
Melrose Free Press
Posted Dec 15, 2011
Melrose, Mass. —
When David Keeling found a discarded purse on a Boston sidewalk in late November, he had no idea how much the bag was worth to its owner.

Keeling, a homeless veteran and Malden native, didn’t even look inside the purse. After he spotted it tossed onto a curb near a Staples on Court Street, he went inside the store and handed it over to an employee. He had no idea, until later, that the purse’s owner had lost more than a bag — she’d lost irreplaceable photographs of her late daughter.

Barbara Cuervo, of Melrose, was taking a lunch break from her job as a receptionist at John Hancock when the purse was stolen. Surveillance footage shows a woman went up to Cuervo’s table in a busy restaurant in Downtown Crossing and snatched the purse without anyone noticing. The thief apparently tossed the bag after rummaging through it and taking some items. (No arrests have yet been made in the case.)

The purse contained a bank card, a commuter rail pass and some coins — but what Cuervo truly feared losing were the photos of her daughter, Christine Aquino, who was murdered as a teenager when the family lived in Batavia, N.Y.

“I actually never thought I would see that again,” said Cuervo, 67.
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