Former Jewelry Wholesalers Charged With Setting Up Home Invasion

Bowling Green, Ky.—Police in Bowling Green, Kentucky have arrested four individuals in a July 2020 home invasion that involved stealing a safe containing about $1 million worth of antique jewelry.

Late last month, the Bowling Green Police Department charged Nicolas Enrique Cruz-Palacios and Javier Nunez, both 41 years old and from Old Hickory, Tennessee, along with Bowling Green couple Jeffery M. Weisman and Patricia Weisman in the robbery of a residence/home office that belonged to a late friend of the Weismans.

The Jewelers’ Security Alliance reported on the home invasion in a crime alert sent out in August 2020.

According to JSA, at about 10:30 a.m. on July 13, three men disguised as delivery drivers knocked on the door of the residence/home office in Bowling Green.

The home belonged to the late Dr. Barbara G. Burch, the former provost of Western Kentucky University who died in January 2020 at the age of 81, leaving behind her husband.

One suspect allegedly pulled a gun on the employee who opened the door, tied her up and held her at gunpoint while the other two men wheeled out a large safe, loading it into a white van using a moving dolly.

The employee “suffered extensive injuries” during the robbery, JSA said, while the suspects—armed with knowledge of the house—spray-painted an exterior surveillance camera and used a portable Wi-Fi jammer to disable interior security cameras.

Cruz-Palacios and Nunez are alleged to have carried out the robbery. Online records from the Warren County Detention Center show they face charges of first-degree robbery, kidnapping, and second-degree assault.

Both men gave police the name of the third individual allegedly involved in the robbery, but they were not the same name, WNKY reported.

Cruz-Palacios and Nunez are being held on $25,000 cash bond each.

Jeffery, 70, and Patricia, 64—former jewelry wholesalers who knew, and were friends with, Burch—are alleged to have set up the robbery.

They face charges of complicity to first-degree robbery, complicity to kidnapping, complicity to second-degree assault and theft by unlawful taking. They have been released on $25,000 cash bond each.

The Weismans owned Boyer’s Wholesale and Barbara’s Tea Room, a business that sold antique jewelry and furniture and contained a café.

The tea room portion of the business was named after Burch, with the top of the menu reading: “Dedicated to my dear late friend Barbara Burch, who had the original idea for