As many in the community were readying themselves for Easter festivities, one resident was scheming. 

On Easter Sunday, April 20 at around 1 a.m. cameras caught a figure in a black hoodie uprooting four bushes at Towne Tavern on 3138 Cranberry Hwy. Although, the owner David Barry didn't notice the missing landscaping until Tuesday.

After a few of his workers pointed out the empty holes, he went to check his cameras.

"I backtracked all my cameras and found until I could see where there were plants and where there wasn't," Barry said. "Clearly they knew a camera was there so they pulled out of the view. Then they walked up, took two plants, walked back and took two more." 

Barry decided to post the crime to Facebook to try to catch whoever took his bushes. After garnering hundreds of interactions with his post, he took the evidence to the police.

The owner of Jojo's Bakery across the street, Joann West, said she witnessed the car in the parking lot and thought it was suspicious.  

"We were working late fixing the oven," she said. "I looked across the street and I happened to notice a vehicle sitting there with its headlights on and I thought, 'That's kind of odd, do they have security patrol or something?'"

A family friend reached out to Barry to let him know the same thing had happened to her around the same time and they knew the thief's name. With the information in hand, Barry went back to the police.

"An hour later the same cop that I've been dealing with in Wareham asked me what my plants looked like. And I'm like, 'knee high with a little bulb on top,'" Barry said.

The officer verified that he had the bushes right in front of him, and that the accused thief was known to the police department. The plants were delivered back to Barry to be placed where they belong.

"They said they were going to summon her to court but — once a degenerate loser, always a degenerate loser," he said. "It's probably a slap on the wrist."

Barry said wasn't upset with the cost of the bushes he's just mad a petty crime occurred. He said he doesn't understand why someone would risk so much to take landscaping. 

"Why would you want those four plants when there's 15 others next to it? Why just those particular plants? It's ridiculous. I get it, people are down and out in certain circumstances but I work for everything I do," he said.

Being in the restaurant business for over 25 years, Barry said this is the first time something like this has happened to him. Towne Tavern opened its Wareham location two years ago and this year is the first the business decided to fully landscape  

Barry said his childhood molded him into someone who has never had to steal to get where he is. He said that karma will get to the thief if the law doesn't first.

"You work hard for something and invest in a community that you hope appreciates everything that you're doing," he said. "The amount of involvement my wife and I have with the local sports teams and veterans programs — to have someone who doesn't represent the community stealing a plant. It's almost funny. I can't believe someone would stoop to that level."