A nearly life-sized statue missing for decades from an Italian church is being returned by an American couple who finally solved the mystery of their family's odd relic. Ed Nader told NewsWorks (http://bit.ly/2tDlxC4 ) the statue of St. Pantaleon, considered the patron saint of physicians, spent years in his great-grandmother's closet. He recently discovered that it actually belonged to the church in Montauro, Italy, so Nader agreed to return it.

The statue of the saint bound to a tree came to the U.S. in 1946 when a group of Montauro parishioners brought it to Boston for a feast day parade, Nader said. For some reason, they left it with his great-grandmother in Philadelphia and never returned to retrieve it. She kept it a walk-in closet on the third story of her rowhome and lit candles at its base.