About 20 garden gnomes appear to be “on the loose,” so to speak, in Webster.
Webster police say they’re on the case.
Linda Williams of 33 Kittleberger Park in Webster said she was “heartbroken” when she awoke at the usual time, about 6 a.m., Sunday morning and noticed that all 20 of the two to three-foot spritely creatures she had decorating her front yard were gone.
She said this morning that she learned from two different neighbors later in the day that they saw a white van, and what appeared to be two girls and a guy, near her yard about 1:30 a.m. Sunday.
Williams said she called Webster Police and filed a report.
Lt. Mike Chiapperini said today that officers are investigating the theft.
“Everyone knows they’re missing, and we are looking for them,” he said. “A lot of times, officers do come across them ... We don’t find that anyone is out there stealing and reselling them.”
Chiapperini said that in cases like this, it often turns out that “kids” are just playing a prank, and perhaps piling up the gnomes in a friend’s yard, so they will turn up.
“This could be a prank-type thing,” he said, but officers won’t know until they find the gnomes.
Williams is hopeful.
“I just spent my paycheck on some more of them last week,” she said, reporting that the gnomes, which appeared in a variety of poses, from a pair siting on a bench to one with a bunny, cost about $30 each. Two of the newer gnomes, both now among the missing, were attached to solar lights.
“Everyone enjoys how I decorate my yard,” Williams said. “I do it for me, but also for the neighbors who walk by, too. I just like the way the elves — that’s what I call them — look.”
According to Wikipedia, a garden gnome, or lawn gnome, is a small, human-like figurine, usually made of clay or resin and painted. The gnomes often are depicted with beards and wearing pointy hats. Some say gnomes “help” gardens at night.
Wikipedia also says that gnomes are often the target of pranks, known collectively as “gnoming.”
