Stolen Ocean City hotel portrait safely returned

• A portrait of Dunes Manor founder Thelma Conner was stolen late Sunday.
• It was found safely in a motel room at the EconoLodge located just next door to the Dunes Manor.
• Police are involved in tracking down the culprits, according to hotel management.

A priceless portrait stolen from an Ocean City hotel has been safely returned.

Thieves snatched the picture of Dunes Manor Hotel owner and founder Thelma Connor – which was next to her husband, Milton Connor – from right off the wall. The large portrait was found next door, at the EconoLodge Oceanfront, on 29th Street and Baltimore Avenue.

Kyle Johnson, Dunes Manor general manager, said an EconoLodge manager called to say the picture had been left behind in a guest room.

"They took us back to one of their housekeeping storerooms, and sure enough, the portrait was there," Johnson said. "We're very lucky to get it back in one piece.

"She's back next to Milton again, and Milton doesn't look as lonely."

Dean Wooten, a manager at the EconoLodge Oceanfront at 29th Street, said the picture had been found in a room where the guests, whom he identified only as a group of young people, already had checked out.

"I guess some kids must have taken it off their property," he said. "When they checked out, the maid found their portrait. We held it until we found out who it belonged to. We figured they'd call back, that they'd left it behind. I'm sure it was a prank."

The picture had been stolen from its home in the Dunes Manor lobby between 2-3 a.m. July 21. A security guard was elsewhere in the hotel at the time, and Johnson believes the thieves waited until the front desk clerk stepped away briefly from her post.

The pilfered picture was one of a pair of 2.5-by-3.3-foot portraits: one of Thelma Conner and the other of her husband, Milton Conner. Both hung at the top of a staircase landing and were placed within a wall inset several feet off the floor. Thieves would have had to pull themselves on a narrow ledge to retrieve the painting. It likely took more than one person to pull off the heist, Johnson said.

Now, both portraits – a painting of Milton, and a photograph of Thelma – have since been bolted by their frames to the wall. Ocean City Police have been contacted, and are involved in tracked down the culprit, according to Johnson. There was no surveillance footage available of the lobby.

Milton and Thelma Conner were married in 1940, and spent years running The Dunes motel. They dreamed of opening a full-service hotel on an adjacent block of vacant oceanfront property, according to a history of the hotel posted on its website.

Milton Conner fell ill and died in 1979. Thelma never wavered in her dreams to open the hotel, and at age 74, she eventually did opened the 11-story Dunes Manor. The property is now well-known for its Victorian décor and daily tea time.