A substantial marble carving of a Mexican god of war stolen overnight Nov. 13 from the front yard of a home in the 2600 block of 34th Avenue West has been found, said its owner, Paul Sutton.
The theft was listed in the Nov. 23 Police Blotter of the News.
The sculpture ended up in the back yard of a home in the 3800 block of 35th Avenue West after it was dropped in the middle of the street, said Maurie Lamoureux, who lives at the house.
"I almost ran into it," he said, adding that he and a buddy muscled it into his back yard. "Man, that (SOB) is heavy." Lamoureux said he didn't know the carving had been stolen. "I may be a flake and a ne'er-do-well, but I am not a thief," he said.
Lamoureux found out the carving had been stolen because Sutton put up fliers in Magnolia about the theft. But before that happened, Sutton said, he drove around looking for it and ended up on the street where Lamoureux lives.
"That's when I saw this pile of what looked like plaster board in the middle of the street," Sutton said. "But when I reached down and ran my hand through it, I saw it was marble."
The pulverized marble was all that remained of a carved bird perched on top of the sculpture after the piece had been dropped and dragged down the street, he said. "I didn't see the statue yet."
Sutton said he asked around about it. "Quite a few people had seen it; they just didn't know where it went," he said. But the fliers clued Lamoureux in, and he called the cops, who then called Sutton. "That made me feel pretty good," Sutton said.
He said he was still trying last weekend to make arrangements with friends to give him a hand carting the carving back to his yard, where it had sat for the past six years.
Sutton said he got the carving from an Oakland, Calif., warehouse belonging to a motorcycle club whose name he didn't want used in this story. "The number-two guy in the outfit told me it would look good in my yard," Sutton added.
Sutton drove the sculpture up to Seattle in the bed of his cherry 1949 Ford pickup truck, and he had to use an engine hoist to unload it because the carving weighs around 850 pounds, he said.
The fact the sculpture weighs so much made it surprising that anyone would steal it, Sutton said. "I would say (it took) at least three, maybe four, pretty strong people."
Sutton said he thinks he knows when the carving was stolen because Goebbels, his Doberman pinscher, started barking in the house on the night in question. However, Sutton said the dog barks a lot because a neighborhood squirrel likes to come up to the window and tease him. "So I don't always pay attention to what he's doing," he said of the dog.
Sutton said he is burned up that his carving was stolen, and he'd like to find out who's responsible. "I've never been real kind to people who mess around with me," he explained.
Sutton figures someone must have seen the thieves steal the carving, and he also thinks the perps will probably start blabbing about the heist. There's also another way the suspects might end up getting fingered.
Sutton suggested the local chapter of the California motorcycle club that gave him the sculpture might get involved. "They just don't ever stop looking - ever," he said.
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or 461-1309.[[In-content Ad]]
