'It's heartbreaking': 97-year-old woman says $3.4K diamond stolen at Vancouver nursing home

Update, Feb. 2, 2020: Tragically, Mary Wong died shortly after this story was published. Her daughter, Janice Wong, says her mother was not the same after the diamond went missing from the ring. Despite Mary's death, Wong says she's been told the Vancouver police investigation will continue into the alleged Jan. 14 theft at Arbutus Long Term Care.

The sparkle is gone — quite literally — from Mary Wong's life.

The 97-year-old had to give up almost all of her possessions when she moved into Vancouver's Arbutus Long Term Care Home three months ago.

But she held onto her most cherished belonging: the .65 carat diamond engagement ring her husband bought her in 1943.

Now the centrepiece diamond, worth an estimated $3,400, has vanished — pried from her ring.

"I feel terrible", says Mary Wong. "Imagine being asleep and somebody taking it from you. It's scary."

Mary and her daughter, Janice Wong, believe the diamond was stolen from the ring while she slept at the Arbutus care home by someone using a small pair of pliers.

Their theory is the thief hoped a missing diamond would be less obvious than a missing ring, which also would have been difficult to pull off her arthritic finger.

"I saw her hand and I saw this dark cavity where the sparkle of the diamond would be, and I was immediately shocked," says Janice Wong, 63. "I just felt kind of sick."

"It is heartbreaking."

Under police investigation

The alleged theft of the diamond is now being investigated by Vancouver Police.

A file has also been opened by Vancouver Coastal Health, which publicly funds the majority of beds at the Arbutus Care home. The facility itself is operated by Revera, one of Canada's biggest nursing home companies.  

Janice Wong says she's angry about how she and her mom were treated when they reported the apparent theft to the home operators.

"Their collective response was to say 'no one really knows what happened.' And to me that felt like less of an opinion than a position," says Wong. "It felt dismissive."

In an email to CBC News, Revera's manager of corporate affairs Larry Roberts said, "This is an isolated and unusual incident ... The safety and security of our residents ... is our top priority."

In Janice Wong's mind, there's no doubt the diamond was stolen. She says her mother is on blood thinners, and if she had jammed her hand in a drawer or a door, or had fallen, she would have been bruised.

Wong has the backing of a jeweller, who says he knows exactly how the diamond was snatched.

'Brutal' but 'quickest manner possible'

Ralph Tober of Aurelia Jewels has been looking at diamonds for 40 years, including Wong's ring which he saw about a year ago when he tightened its setting.

He's seen many recovered stolen rings after the stones were removed with force.

He demonstrated how it's done for the CBC, producing small pliers known as "sidecutters."

The blades fit precisely into the tiny grooves left on the crushed setting of Mary Wong's ring. 

"I think that someone would have grabbed that ring and pinched it with a pair of sidecutters underneath the diamond and gave it a good squeeze," says Tober, "and then the diamond pops out."

"It's a brutal way of removing a diamond," he adds, but "the quickest manner possible."

Revera's recent thefts

Revera, the Ontario-based operator of the Arbutus centre, is no stranger to thefts in its nursing homes.

Last April, a staff member at one of its facilities in Winnipeg was charged with stealing jewellery from eight residents, aged 78 to 100, including some suffering from dementia.

Despite Revera's history, Janice Wong says she was told there are no surveillance cameras in common areas leading to rooms at the Arbutus Long Term Care Home. 

• 'A complete loss of trust': Seniors robbed by staffer at Winnipeg care home, police say

Roberts confirms that, but tells CBC News that's not unusual in older facilities such as Arbutus.

He says Revera is conducting an internal investigation into the missing diamond and is fully cooperating with police.

"It would not be appropriate to comment further," wrote Roberts.

But in its admission and orientation guide, the company appears to absolve itself of responsibility for keeping valuables safe saying, "Arbutus Care Centre cannot accept responsibility for a resident's personal belongings or valuables. Jewellery ... should not be kept in the resident's room."

'We can do a better job': B.C.'s seniors advocate

In contrast, the B.C. Ministry of Health policy manual states residential care services should "provide a secure supervised physical environment" and assist the safekeeping of "jewellery that are for everyday use."

B.C. Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie says that means those living in residential care should be able to keep jewellery that is dear to them.

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"I think it would be devastating for some people to have to take their wedding band or engagement ring off ... that you've worn for 70 years," says Mackenzie. "I don't think that's appropriate and I think we can do a better job around giving people assurances."

In addition to the police file opened by Janice Wong, Vancouver Coastal Health says it, too, is looking into the disappearance of her mother's diamond.

'Faint hope'

In the meantime, Wong has applied to have her mother transferred to a different care home.

She still holds out hope they'll get the diamond back.

"It's a faint hope," admits Wong, "even if it's just anonymously returned."

Failing that, she says she hopes this case will highlight the need for all publicly funded nursing homes to have video surveillance and "proper protocol for how to deal with this sort of thing."

Her mother echoes that sentiment — but would also like to see the thief caught.

"I wouldn't mind them finding the person responsible," says Mary Wong. "Because I wouldn't want them to be doing it to somebody else again." 
 

With files from Paisley Woodward