Police say suspect hid in library until closing time.

FALL RIVER — Children visiting the Fall River Public Library this week are being told that Franklin the Turtle is on vacation.

“He means a lot to everybody who’s ever met him and held him,” said Dorothy Sorel, a library volunteer who has been feeding Franklin and taking him outside on walks for the past six years.

“I just want him back,” Sorel said Tuesday as she fought back tears.



(Here's a 2010 Herald News video of Franklin in action.)



An unidentified man stole Franklin from his tank in the library’s children’s room just before closing time Saturday. Police and library staff said the man hid in a corner until staff and patrons left at 5 p.m.

“He literally just blended in. He made himself nondescript,” said David Mello, the library’s supervisor for children’s services.

A surveillance camera in the library recorded Franklin’s theft. After everyone left the children’s room, the man crouched along the bookshelves, twice looking into a hallway to see if anyone was coming, before he took Franklin from his tank, hid the box turtle underneath his sweatshirt and walked out of the library’s Elm Street entrance.

“He was real ninja-esque,” said Mello, who was working Saturday and said he did not notice the suspect, who had lingered around Franklin’s tank as he pretended to look through children’s books nearby. At one point, surveillance footage shows the man even stroked his chin for a few minutes as he looked directly at the tank, as if trying to figure out how he would get away with the heist.

“His intentions were clear,” Mello said. “This is what he wanted to do, all for a turtle.”

Mayor William Flanagan declared the man who stole Franklin to be the “Grinch of the city.”

“It’s shameful that a grown man would steal a pet turtle from the children’s room of the Fall River Public Library,” Flanagan said. “This heinous crime really broke the hearts of the children that loved Franklin.

“I urge anyone who knows or recognizes the individual to contact the FRPD, and I strongly urge this individual to return Franklin unharmed to the Fall River Public Library and to turn himself in,” Flanagan added.

Franklin, who was donated to the library by a young boy more than 13 years ago, is estimated to be 14 or 15 years old, and police said he is valued at about $80. But for the library’s staff, volunteers and especially the children who visited him, Franklin was an invaluable member of the community.

“He was almost like part of the staff, in a way,” Mello said.

Laurel Clark, the administrator of the Fall River Public Library, said Franklin had a distinct personality and was quite sociable. When someone stood outside his tank, Franklin would emerge from his little “house” and move to the side the person was standing on. Franklin — who was named after the turtle in “Franklin’s Bad Day,” a children’s book by Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark — also liked to have the underside of his neck rubbed.

“He was a really, really cool turtle,” Clark said, adding that Franklin had “quite the special diet.”

Sorel, 82, said Franklin enjoys lettuce, cooked chicken, a banana for dessert, and a worm on Mondays and Fridays. Sorel said she would wipe Franklin’s mouth before taking him outside in the grass outside the library. In inclement weather, Sorel said Franklin got his exercise in the carpeted children’s room, and that he would burrow a small tunnel under the carpet and walk along the bookshelves.

“We’ve been doing this for years,” Sorel said. “He knows his way around the Elm Street entrance. I would open the door and he would walk straight in. If someone will just return him to the Elm Street area, he won’t get lost.”

Sorel, heartbroken from Franklin’s disappearance, said she hopes that whoever has the turtle is at least caring for him.

“I feel as close to this turtle as I do my dog,” she said. “He was more than just a mascot. He was a part of the library. He belonged to everyone in the city, even to the guy who stole him.

“It hurts,” Sorel added. “It really, really hurts.”

On Tuesday, Fall River police released a library surveillance photo that shows the suspect to be a white or Hispanic man with dark hair in a ponytail. He wore dark-colored pants and a white graphic T-shirt over a long-sleeved black shirt. Police urged anyone who is able to identify the suspect to call the police department at 508-676-8511 or leave information on the department’s anonymous TIPS line at 508-672-TIPS.

“We want him back. That’s our main goal,” Clark said. “Hopefully, this has a happy ending.”