People are not the only ones kidnapped. Animals too, real and not-so-real. In Maryland, a man stole a huge gorilla statue and a $10,000 bounty price is on his head.
The stealing took place in front of an antique store in Kensington, Maryland, and surveillance video released showed a man driving up to Design Emporium Antiques, cutting the cable locking the statue to the front of the store, and loading the chest-high gorilla into the bed of his pickup truck before pulling away.
Expensive Gorilla
The cast iron statue is worth an estimated $1,000, Montgomery County police told USA TODAY.
Police are asking anyone with information about the suspect to call 1-866-411-TIPS (8477). A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered for information that can lead to the arrest of the suspect.
Another tale a of stolen animal statue
In September of last year, a thief has been stealing bronze animal statues from a cemetery.
Surveillance cameras captured the suspect walking off with a couple of statues but may have stolen many selling them to scrap shops for cash.
Channel 2′s Tom Regan spoke with the owners of Memorial Park Cemetery in Gainesville who say they have recovered some of the statues.
Owner Danny Faulkner says they have a collection of dozens of life-size animal statues that draws many visitors to the cemetery.
“People bring their grandkids, their kids out to play on the statuary,” Faulkner said.
They say they call it Noah’s Ark and was started by the previous owners of the cemetery.
Surveillance cameras recently captured a man stealing a pair of donkeys, but they believe he’s taken as many as 18 of their statues.
They say the original value of the statues would total thousands, but if sold for scrap, they would only be worth a fraction of that.
Are they stealing these just for the money? for the love of art? or just a fetish?