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Taxidermic sheep outside Main Avenue store stolen again

Suspects got away in a 1990s red Datsun
The Shared Blanket at 104 East Fifth St. features a taxidermic sheep in front of the business. It disappeared in May but was found the next day. The sheep was stolen again Tuesday.

It’s happened, again: The taxidermic sheep outside A Shared Blanket on Main Avenue was stolen for a second time Tuesday. Its whereabouts, and condition, remain unknown.

“Can you believe it?” said owner Donna Frank. “I just don’t understand.”

Around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Frank was tending to a large crowd in her art gallery at 104 E. Fifth Street when she was alerted that two males were taking the attire off the taxidermic sheep perched outside the store.

When Frank approached the two men, they dropped all the items on the ground, ran off with the sheep to the parking lot behind the store, and took off in an early 1990s red Datsun. “It had the real feeling of a dare,” Frank said. “They just wanted the sheep.”

For the past eight years, Frank has placed the taxidermic sheep, gifted to her by a group of Navajo ranchers, outside her shop, usually dressed in colorful garb.

On May 27, Frank reported the sheep stolen, only to have it found the next morning.

Although Frank believed the sheep was dropped off in the lobby of the Durango Police station, Lt. Ray Shupe said the once living and breathing animal was retrieved by other means.

Shupe said a suspicious call of underage drinking by two males led officers to the decorative sheep.

“It was seized by officers because they knew it was stolen,” Shupe said previously. “But officers couldn’t get affirmation they had stolen it. They claimed they found it on the south side about 45 minutes before officers contacted them, and that it didn’t have clothing on it when they found it.”

Shupe was not immediately available Wednesday to comment about the second incident.

It’s not the first time businesses in town have been subject to Durango’s penchant for oddball copycat crimes:

In the early 2000s, a bondage-garbed mannequin named Esmerelda at the Fallen Angel adult novelty store was the target of multiple thefts, with one perpetrator going so far as to break in through a window.Truffles, the large stuffed bear outside The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory on Main Avenue, was also repeatedly stolen over the years. However, a manager said Wednesday that hasn’t happened recently.And, of course, The Arc of History – its own history of tampering too long to print here.Frank said the two males were in their 20s – one Caucasian and the other possibly Hispanic. They were wearing hoodies and jeans at the time of the theft.

Frank, in a bizarre feeling of déjà vu, said she just hopes the sheep is returned.

“The kids loved him,” she said the last time it was stolen. “It was really a wonderful symbol to all of us to have the sheep guarding the store instead of us having to guard the sheep.”

jromeo@durangoherald.com

Jun 3, 2016
Missing taxidermy sheep reappears – without its clothes


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