By Tim Binnall
A British man has taken responsibility for a bizarre decades-old case wherein a slew of garden gnomes were stolen and replaced with ransom notes. The weird caper, which reportedly occurred in the small town of Formby back in 1977, received considerable media attention at the time as reporters flocked to the community to cover the curious disappearance of so many lawn ornaments. The case remained an odd local mystery for decades until last week, when the man dubbed the "phantom gnome snatcher of Formby" stepped forward to apologize for his actions and share his side of the strange story.
Using what is presumed to be only his first name, Arthur, the infamous gnome thief spoke to British radio host Vernon Kay about the 1977 caper that the then-15-year-old pulled off with the help of his five-year-old brother. While he mused that "I still can’t remember what made me do it," he recounted how the idea seemingly occurred to him after he was struck by the sight of one particular lawn ornament that left him wondering the purpose of the peculiar decoration. He explained that the duo subsequently surveilled a neighborhood and surveyed the number of gnomes that could be found throughout before then "we went out and collected them, so to speak."
In place of the gnomes, Arthur recalled, he and his brother left behind "fairly amateurish ransom notes" demanding a meager twenty-five pence for the statue's safe return. When none of the victims paid up after three days, the pair "put them all back again and thought absolutely nothing of it." However, how they returned the ornaments made the case all the more mysterious as, to the astonishment of residents, the two kids opted to place all 18 of the pilfered pieces on a park roundabout overnight. While Arthur asked his victims to forgive him, one imagines that will not be much of a problem as, nearly 50 years later, the elaborate prank is fondly remembered by those in Formby as the community's unusual fifteen minutes of fame.