Stolen Book of Mormon recovered

An unidentified woman dropped off a stolen 1852 edition of the Book of Mormon valued at $17,000 at the Reno Gazette-Journal offices on Friday.

The book was one of three mint-condition Books of Mormon from the 1800s stolen earlier this month from Utah art dealer Lee Snarr in Reno. Earlier, the other books were recovered and two suspects were arrested in Reno after one man tried to swap a copy valued at $110,000 for a used car.

The woman turned in the third Book of Mormon Friday, the same day a newspaper article appeared in the Reno paper. The Deseret Morning News also published a story Friday about the thefts.

The woman gave the book to the Gazette-Journal's police reporter, who turned it over to police.

The woman said a youth gave her the book on the street and she didn't realize what she had until she read the article about the theft on Friday.

A third stolen Book of Mormon was valued at $60,000.

Snarr was hauling the books and other items in a trailer while en route to an art show in the San Francisco Bay area when the thefts occurred.

Police said thieves disengaged and towed the trailer after he stopped at a Reno casino for dinner. Two Reno men, Mark Sanders, 39, and Ernest Ortega, 39, were later arrested in the thefts.

Authorities are still trying to find the other stolen property: sculptures of Abraham Lincoln, Paul Revere and Mormon religious figures valued at nearly $170,000.