ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Thousands of dollars in wedding gifts were snatched last month from a newlywed couple at downtown St. Augustine bar.
The incident happened Dec. 14 at Dos Gatos on Hypolita Street, but the St. Augustine Police Department on Thursday posted surveillance on Facebook, asking for the public’s help identifying three people seen in the images. A short time later, a detective told News4Jax that the three had been identified and they were not in custody.
In the meantime, the couple’s wedding gifts are still missing.
The newlyweds, Sherrie and Ricardo Nunez, chose to say their “I do’s” in the center of the nation’s oldest city. What was supposed to be a magical evening for them turned into moments of panic at the end of the night while they were at Dos Gatos, dancing with family and friends during an after-party. That’s when a bag -- containing leftover wedding cake, wedding cards and cash -- disappeared.
“It was very fast,” Sherrie Nunez told News4Jax on Thursday. “It’s very heartbreaking for us, especially those family members that put that kind of money for us to start off our new marriage, you know? It’s sad.”
Surveillance video from inside Dos Gatos shows the white bag in the background with the newlyweds just steps away. Soon after, a man and a woman can be seen coming into the bar and putting their outwear on that same table. When the man and the woman were getting ready to leave, the man can be seen grabbing the outwear from the table. In the video, the two talk for a few moments before the woman goes back and grabs the bag with the wedding cards inside -- just as the groom turns the other way.
“I am looking at the bag every 10 seconds, turning around,” Ricardo Nunez said. “When I was looking at the video, you can see that everything happened within 45 seconds. I look to it, I take my eyes from it and then I look back and it’s gone.”
Police said another man was seen entering the bar and dancing with the man and the woman, but left separately. Again, investigators said Thursday they identified the three people captured on surveillance and no one was in custody.
The newlyweds said they hope police are able to find their missing cards, which they hadn’t even had a chance to read.
“He had family that came all the way from Venezuela, so we don’t get to see those people a lot and it was something very special to us,” Sherrie Nunez said. “If it was an accident, that is one thing. But for somebody to actually do that, it’s really heartbreaking.”