Man sought for stealing from donation dinosaur at Dana Farber Cancer Institute

BOSTON — The signs outside say “We’re all Jimmy,” but it turns out we’re not.

According to police someone stole donations on two separate occasions last week from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

“That’s the worst thing you could possibly do, steal from kids with cancer,” said nurse Julie Foiadelli.

“First your stealing from people that need it, so that’s a horrible thing, and then you’re stealing from children,” said nurse Evonne Malcolm. “I just think it’s horrible. Where is the kindness gone in the world?”

The kindness was in a purple dinosaur. That’s where kind people donate their hard-earned dollars to the Jimmy Fund, and police say that suspect came in and targeted the dinosaur and emptied all the paper bills.

“Oh my God that’s awful, that’s so sad,” Foiadelli said. “You can always see there’s money in the belly, there’s always a good amount of money in the belly.”

Surveillance cameras got a good shot of him and his getaway grey sedan. Police believe he’s in his 20s, stands about 5-foot-9 and 185 lbs. with medium-length hair, and was last seen wearing a tie-dye shirt, gray shorts and white Crocs. However, it’s what he wasn’t wearing that let employees know it was someone from the outside.

“The pinkish mask, this applies to every single person in our institute, so you can tell,” said employee Hanzhong Ke.

But what they do know is the man was determined because they say it’s not easy to steal from the purple dinosaur.

“You have to work to get that money,” Foiadelli said. “It will take a really desperate person to take money from there.”

It’s unknown the exact amount of money stolen, but the staff said that dinosaur is not the main source of donations, so it was less than a couple of hundred dollars. But they said it was the principle of what he did that makes this so disturbing.

“We were very, very disturbed by these thefts and are working closely with Boston Police Department on this case. We are hopeful that someone in the community has information on who is involved and will give it to the Boston Police,” said Dana Farber Cancer Institute Director of Security and Emergency Management Ralph Nerette.

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