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‘Sasquatch’ stolen, recovered along river

Posted at 10:55 PM, Aug 26, 2014
and last updated 2014-08-26 23:35:55-04

HASTINGS, Mich. - A stolen Sasquatch is home safe after it was snatched from the banks of the Thornapple River.

Witnesses say that on Aug. 16, two men who were tubing along the river in Barry County parked their tubes on the river bank and proceeded to take a seven-foot silhouette of Bigfoot from its stand.

Lisa Ackley's father made the Bigfoot cutout. "The neighbors get such a kick out of it," said Lisa Ackley. "He got a pattern. My mom had been up to a training camp up at Black Lake, and my dad ended up getting a pattern for (Sasquatch), so he made one for each of us three kids."

But Sasquatch wasn't standing in her yard for long.

"He was only out there for 13 days, and in those 13 days I don’t think one went by that there wasn’t somebody who went by and said, 'Look, there’s Bigfoot,'" said Ackley.

So nearly two weeks after he was erected along the river, Ackley's family left the house to pick up some firewood for camping.

"My neighbors across the river contacted my son, who was home, and saidm, 'Somebody just stole your Bigfoot,"' Ackley said. "He was at least 100 foot up off from the property, attached to a big fence post, a metal fence post. They had broken that fence post off and apparently floated him down the river on their tubes."

sasquatchThe would-be thieves didn't make it far after neighbors called police. Officers were waiting for the suspects at Tyden Park, about 20 minutes downstream.

"By the time we got back into town and got down to Tyden Park, there lays my Bigfoot on the ground, and the police are talking to a couple of kids," said Ackley. "So, I knew they found him, and he was mine."

The case is now in the hands of the Barry County prosecutor.

"It’s kind of a sentimental value thing, but at the same time, if somebody’s gonna come onto my property like that, I’m a little ticked off."

Ackley plans to put the Sasquatch back along the river, but this time she plans on attaching it to a tree.