RICHMOND, (WRIC) – Driving down Bellevue Avenue in Richmond’s Northside, you’ll see rows of homes that decorate big for the spooky season – one of those homes belongs to Jason Sampson and his family.
“We go all-out for Halloween,” said Sampson. “It’s kind of our favorite holiday of the year.”
Decorating their front lawn has been a tradition that’s stuck with the family for years, but last Friday, one of his daughters noticed an important decoration was missing – their 6-foot skeleton, ‘Mrs. Bones,’ had been snatched from their front yard.
“She’s like, ‘Where’s Mrs. Bones?’ And then it dawned on us, and we checked the camera from the doorbell, and we could see it disappeared between 7 and 8 p.m. that Thursday night,” said Sampson. “Somebody came up and just snatched the whole thing off over the fence.”
Thefts of outdoor decorations are a sad trend that increases in frequency around this time of year, but Sampson told 8News that in his three years of living in the area, this sort of thing has never happened to them.
Sampson’s youngest daughter, Mallory, who has epilepsy, dressed ‘Mrs. Bones’ in an old Princess Belle dress and purple wig — the color which represents her condition — in an effort to raise awareness. Next to ‘Mrs. Bones’ stood ‘Mr. Bones,” another 6-foot skeleton, who is dressed in a pirate costume.
“She came up with the whole backstory of the pirate and his wife who got married, and she even has little wedding rings that she made for them on their fingers,” said Sampson.
After the family realized it was missing, Sampson made the decision to zip-tie all of their other decorations to prevent this from happening again. He encourages others to do the same – making it harder for people to steal.
“It’s just a shame because, you know, the kids get really into it.” said Sampson.
Anyone with information related to this incident is asked to call the Richmond Police Department at 804-646-5112.
