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On Wednesday, CBS 2 HD told you about a church in Queens that had a historic 120-year-old bronze bell -- weighing 650 pounds -- stolen from church grounds
Now we've found out that a second church, a couple of blocks away in that same Woodside neighborhood, had two bronze bells stolen just hours later in the dark of night.
The first church is St. Mary's on 48th Avenue, a Catholic church. The second is St. John Chrysostom, an eastern orthodox church, on 48th avenue.
The Very Rev. Daniel Degyansky of St. John's does not think junkies stole these bells.
"No, the way this was carried out … well-planned ... researched ... both bells were 150 and 100 pound," Degyansky said.
That same night, a 650-pound bronze bell was stolen from St. Mary's a few blocks away. That bell was waiting to be put in the church garden.
"I think their bell was 650 pounds, ours total 250 pounds -- we're talkin' 900 pounds of bronze," Degyansky said.
Father Brendan Duggan of St. Mary's is trying to stay positive about the experience.
"I made contact with the local scarp yards, here in Brooklyn and in Queens," Father Brendan Duggan said. "I must say they were very cooperative."
Degyansky knows bronze can be sold for scrap at about $2 a pound. That's $1,800, more proof somebody worked hard to steal the bells
"The bolts that were used --these were locked-in bolts [cutaways of bolts]," Degyansky said. "They were lined in plastic. You have to have special wrenches to do it."
The bells at St. John's were imported from Greece, and donated in the name of the parents and grandparents of the Brennan family, who still go to the church. The bell at St. Mary's was about to be put on permanent display. It was 120 years old. While Duggan does not want to see the thieves in jail, his counterpart has another place in mind.
"Somewhere in hell between Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein there's a seat reserved for these guys," Degyansky said.
In the orthodox church Easter is in three weeks. Those bells would have been rung to celebrate the holiest of days.
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