Kathleen Gould, the owner of Douglas Jewelers in downtown Norwood, found herself at a crossroads on the morning of June 12, 1985, when she walked into her shop at 715 Washington St. to find nearly her entire inventory stolen.
In a professional heist that spanned multiple businesses, thieves had smashed through a brick wall in an alley, worked their way through a neighboring clothing store and the Norwood Beauty Supply, and finally cut through an interior wall to empty the shelves and safe of the jewelry store. The loss was estimated by police to be between $50,000 and $100,000, and for Gould, a Whitman resident, the impact was compounded by the fact that she carried no insurance, as coverage for such a high-risk commodity was both expensive and difficult to obtain.
This was not Gould’s first encounter with criminal activity. Just the year prior at her other shop in Rockland, she had physically fought off an armed assailant who demanded she fill a plastic bag with gold. Despite being knocked unconscious during that struggle, Gould remained a resilient business owner, describing her Norwood operation as a “mom and pop store—only there isn’t any pop; there’s just me.” Following the June 11 nighttime break-in in Norwood, she initially struggled to find the motivation to rebuild, but she was quickly buoyed by an outpouring of community support.
Fellow business owners throughout Norwood rallied to her side, sending cards, flowers, and candy to the store. Louise Salami, owner of the neighboring Norwood Beauty Supply, noted that the local merchants took the crime personally, recognizing their own vulnerability in the downtown area. “They all offered to do anything they could,” Gould recounted, touched by the number of strangers who visited the store just to express their sympathy. By July 11, 1985, the shelves and glass cases of Douglas Jewelers were once again full of diamond and gold jewelry. While Norwood police spokesman Paul Bishop confirmed that no arrests had been made, the professional nature of the heist remained under active investigation as Gould continued to look toward the future of her business.
Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger
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