A Canadian town has been struck with a peculiar crime wave: Somebody is stealing female mannequins.
The National Post reports (via Fark) that 11 mannequins—every one of them female—have been snatched from various stores in Belleville, Ontario. “Somebody is out to steal our mannequins. We don’t know why,” said boutique owner Natasha Baylis. “It’s creepy.” The paper recaps one of the thefts:
When she eventually made her way out front, she saw the shards of glass jutting out from the door. Baylis’s iPad and laptop were still on the counter, though. And all the money was in the unlocked cash register. All that was missing was the little, child-like mannequin in the front window — with only its hat and one of its arms left behind.
“It’s extremely weird, isn’t it?” she said. “They kidnapped my little girl mannequin.”
Another store owner says she’s had two different break-ins and lost four mannequins, plus whatever they were wearing at the time. And she thinks there was a third attempt, but she’d strengthened the door. “They scratched the hell out of the plexiglass,” she told the National Post. “They’re putting an effort into it, which is crazy to me, just to steal a mannequin.” None of the 11 stolen mannequins was even that special or expensive, in the grand scheme of mannequin things.
The cops seem to agree that yeah, the whole thing is pretty weird: “Obviously it raises flags,” said Staff-Sgt. Sheri Meeks.. “What is the motive for taking the mannequins? Is it because mannequins are expensive? Is there a more deviant motive for it?”
In the event that you are... in the market... Amazon has mannequins available at very reasonable prices. No need to turn to a life of crime.