A stolen Suni Lee statue was recovered in St. Paul thanks to a drone-assisted investigation

St. Paul senior commander Ryan Murphy tells WCCO Radio that a routine response to a shots fired call was the reason they cracked the case.

He says an aerial drone arrived ahead of officers after the call to the 900 block of Forest Street just after 12:30 a.m. The drone spotted shell casing and suspects on the porch.

"Over the course of the last year, the investigators have been diligent to follow the leads, but there just haven't been many leads," explains Murphy. "So the fact that we can see those folks outside and we eventually get to execute that warrant, there is a bit of a bit of luck to it."

That information allowed them to get a search warrant that uncovered multiple firearms, ammunition, and the missing Suni Lee statue that was stolen from Phalen Regional Park last July.

"They knew that was an important piece to recover and get back to our parks folks so that we could display that and make that recognition proper again," Murphy says.

He adds that the statue will be reinstalled at the park with enhanced security measures in place, but there is no information as to when that will be.

Lee, a native of St. Paul, is currently training for a third Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028. She is a six-time Olympic medalist, and a two-time gold medal winner.

Lee told WCCO's Adam Carter recently that she started thinking about another Olympics the moment she fell off the balance beam during the Paris Olympics.

"Second I got up I walked up to my coach and I was like, 'damn I have to come back, and he laughed at me," Lee recalled. "And he was like, I knew you were gonna say that so we just kept it on the low for the past two years."

Lee says she's been training the past several weeks and is already seeing results.