$10K Saxophone Stolen From Private Investigator’s Clinton Hill Loft After Couch-Crasher Fled

$10K Saxophone Stolen From Private Investigator’s Clinton Hill Loft After Couch-Crasher Fled
(Photo courtesy likeaduck / Instagram)
(Photo courtesy likeaduck / Instagram)

When a stranger showed up at the Clinton Hill apartment of Peter Noel Duhamel — he had no idea she was primed to knock the wind right out of him.

The stranger introduced herself as a German photographer, and said that she found the apartment from a month-old Craigslist ad. She had been kicked out of her artist residence and needed a place to crash, reports DNA info.

Duhamel, 69, let the woman stay at his loft on Washington Avenue between Flushing and Park Avenues. But his kindness fell flat when she swiped his keys and fled the apartment early morning on July 7, reports DNA info.

After a couple of days, he realized that his rare saxophone was also missing. The Selmer Mark VI horn which he had owned for 25 years, was worth $10,400, said Duhamel.

“It’s a rare horn — all you need to do is hold it and compare it to the newer horns,” Duhamel told DNA info. “It’s probably twice as heavy because the brass on it is substantial. It has just a beautiful, dark sound to it.”

But this thief might have thought twice if they’d known that Duhamel was a licensed private investigator, and is now getting down to brass tacks with police to find the woman, who he describes as about 39 or 40 years old, last seen wearing a black fedora.

According to Duhamel, the fedora-wearing woman was planning to stay in Brooklyn through October.