DELHI, Ohio — Residents in Delhi Township are dealing with a string of "arm" robberies. Someone is stealing an arm off a 12-foot, $300 skeleton Halloween decoration.
Ashley Farrell and her family love their skeleton, Steve. At some point Monday night, someone took his hand.
“We checked the radius, because [it’s] the radius that’s missing,” she said.
“I try and make it light because it is just a 12-foot skeleton, but at the same time, I feel like our decorations bring joy,” Farrell said. “I’ve had tons of people stop and say they love them, and it’s just a little sad for him to lose an arm.”
On a street nearby the following night, KD Sanchez came home to find her skeleton, Skelly, knocked over.
Home security video shows a car pull up to her home around 9 p.m. After trying to pull off the arm, the skeleton falls to the ground. The loud sound causes the people to run back to the car and take off.
“It’s so frustrating,” Sanchez said. “You spent a ton of money and a ton of time doing this … coming home to it vandalized just really hurts.”
An arm went missing, and the piece that attaches the skull to the frame is broken.
The Halloween fanatic said acts like this discourage her from going all-out for the holiday.
“This is probably going to be my last year decorating, which is a huge bummer,” she said.
Later that hour on Tuesday night, Dent resident Kayla Schalk said her Halloween decorations were vandalized. Among other actions, the culprits tore the arm off her skeleton and cracked his leg.
“He’s never going to be the same, unfortunately,” Schalk said.
Looking at the mess around her front yard, Schalk found an additional skeleton hand that was damaged. It wasn’t hers.
“Hopefully he'll be back with his body again,” she said.
After Schalk posted about the extra hand on social media, mutual posters pointed her to Sanchez, who had posted about her missing hand earlier in the week. The two were able to make the handoff on Thursday.
On Thursday night, Farrell told WCPO the skeleton's hand was left on her front porch "surrounded by rose petals and an apology note."
Now, as Farrell hoped, "he can be whole again.”
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