A thief made a mistake last week: He wore his work T-shirt while pilfering plants in South City.
Prosecutors charged Daniel Cotler, 42, with felony stealing yesterday, saying in charging documents that the man from Belleville, Illinois, stole three plants valued at more than $750 from an address in the Marine Villa neighborhood two Mondays ago.
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Police and prosecutors had more than a little help in the case, both from the woman who had her plants stolen and from the city’s LGBTQ community.
Sarah Ulrich says that plants were repeatedly stolen from outside her home last week. On Monday, it was multiple caladiums that had all been planted in a row. On Wednesday and Thursday, several upright elephant ears and hardy hibiscuses.
“The first one, I was willing to let it go. But people were like, ‘No, because of Tower Grove Park, you really shouldn’t,’” she says.
Last month, images of partially emptied-out plant beds at the South City park made local news. In a blog post, park leaders said that each year they have about 200 plants stolen, costing around $11,000 to replace. “It’s a six-month impact on the aesthetics of the park,” Bill Reininger, Tower Grove Park’s executive director, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “There’s definitely an emotional toll, not only on our team but on our patrons.”
Ulrich identifies with that sentiment. “We’re tired of nuisance crimes,” she says.
For 25 years, she’s been an avid gardener on her block, starting two community gardens. The plants in her own yard have spurred countless neighborly interactions. She says having her plants stolen hits differently: “It’s more than just a plant—it’s time, it’s energy. Some of these plants I’ve had for 30 years.”
Ulrich’s security-camera footage captured the thief in the act, and she posted a still on Facebook. Eagle-eyed web sleuths recognized the shirt worn by the plant thief as one worn by staff members of Club St. Louis, a gay sauna in Midtown.
Enter Chris Andoe, the editor-in-chief of Out in STL magazine, the former society columnist at the Riverfront Times, a contributor to SLM, and a friend of Ulrich’s. Andoe says that “within minutes” of him making a post of his own about the plant thefts, he got tips that the thief was Cotler.
“Our LGBTQ community is really effective at policing itself, so when Sarah posted the photo of the alleged thief in a Club St. Louis shirt, we realized he was one of ours, and sprung into action, sharing the photo on social media,” says Andoe.
Andoe says his husband, Kage Black, even made a trip to the sauna to see if any of Ulrich’s plants had somehow wound up there. They hadn’t, but Andoe says Black was able to confirm that Cotler was a recent hire at the sauna. (Club St. Louis did not return a message seeking comment.) Andoe says he and his husband were motivated; three years ago their own garden was wantonly destroyed. “The quality-of-life crimes we deal with are demoralizing, but when someone steals our plants or the plants in our parks, it’s maddening,” he says.
Ulrich shared the information with police, who arrested Cotler on Tuesday and filed a felony stealing charge the next day.
Yesterday, Cotler was released on bond. He posted on Facebook a lengthy and poetic apology titled “How Do I Say I’m Sorry.” (One passage: “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone by taking flowers from your yard. It was my way to cope, to bring smiles where there were none, a fleeting moment of beauty in a world so dark and trying.”) His next court date is August 19.
Ulrich stresses that she doesn’t want the fact that the police had help from the community to detract from their work and that the officers in her neighborhood have a good track record with police solving crimes on her block.
“I know people are frustrated with the police, but this is a good reason to advocate for cameras,” she says. “Without cameras, this guy is a ghost.”
