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THE INVESTIGATION: WHAT WAS AND WASN’T RESOLVED
Detective Donald Hrycyk confirmed the recovery of Action Comics No. 1 to the press in April 2011 and stated that the investigation into the theft was in its early stages in terms of identifying who had stolen it. The contemporaneous reporting is consistent in noting that no suspect was identified, no arrest was made, and the investigation was described as ongoing.
The eleven-year gap between the theft report and the recovery is not unusual for cases handled by the LAPD Art Theft Detail. Hrycyk has described cases that took decades to develop, that were reopened by new tips, that required patient maintenance of records and contacts over long periods before a break emerged. The Cage case appears to have been exactly this kind: a case that was kept open, that involved periodic false leads—including the 2002 Tennessee safe-deposit box tip—and that resolved when the stolen property entered the expert network in a way that triggered recognition.
The resolution, however, was partial. The comic was recovered. The theft itself—who committed it, how they removed the comics from Cage’s home, where the book spent the eleven years between the theft and the storage locker discovery—was not resolved publicly. The storage locker was in the San Fernando Valley; the storage company through whose auction the contents were sold was American Auctioneers of Riverside; the buyer was anonymous. None of the information available in public reporting connects these facts to the original thief.