I found this very interesting article about the nefarious crime of Gnome Knapping from the Oregonian. I thought you would like it.

Police nab alleged gnome-napper

Kimberly Baker-Bundy, whose home was described as a "chop shop" of garden ornaments, is in custody

02/19/04

DANA TIMS

The mystery of the missing garden gnomes may finally have been solved.

Kimberly Rae Baker-Bundy, facing a Washington County Circuit Court theft warrant, turned herself in to the county jail late last week and now faces trial on the charges.

Although the 49-year-old Sherwood resident has not entered a plea, police think she roamed far and wide through Washington and Clackamas counties, perhaps for years, allegedly stealing items not solidly nailed down from area lawns, gardens and backyards.

"I've never seen a case like this," Sherwood police Detective Dwight Onchi said. "She literally had more stuff than you can imagine."

Judge Marco A. Hernandez issued a warrant for Baker-Bundy's arrest after she failed to appear in court for a mandatory Feb. 6 call date.

Sherwood police Officer Jeff Fitzpatrick saw Baker-Bundy in Sherwood the following day, but wasn't able to arrest her because the warrant hadn't been activated, Onchi said. Baker-Bundy then turned herself in to jail authorities on Valentine's Day.

Baker-Bundy was being held at the jail Wednesday on $20,000 security, a jail spokesman said. She is charged with 14 counts of second-degree theft and 11 counts of third-degree theft, Onchi said.

Police began investigating the case in late 2002, when Onchi noticed a trend of police reports describing apparently random thefts of weathered birdhouses, gargoyles, ceramic frogs, signs and numerous other knickknacks.

"I kept saying to various officers, one day, we're going to come up on this whole yard full of ornaments," Onchi said. "And that's just what happened."

The case broke just before Christmas that year, when a Sherwood couple, returning to their residence, saw a woman crossing their lawn carrying what appeared to be items from their backyard. The man tried unsuccessfully to stop her from driving off, but managed to get her license plate number, Onchi said.

The case took so long to put together, he said, due mainly to the difficulty of matching specific items recovered from Baker-Bundy's former residence with photographs of missing lawn items supplied by victims.

By the time police obtained a warrant to search the residence, Onchi said, they found huge piles of doormats, glass baubles, wagon wheels, wind chimes, lawn deer and numerous other items.

Inside the house, Onchi found what he called a lawn-ornament "chop shop." Baker-Bundy, using a special cart placed over metal plating, allegedly was repainting many of the items, perhaps for resale, he said.

"Her favorite colors were black and red," he said. "She was a busy camper, too. The place was so crowded you could barely walk through it."

His department received more than 200 calls in the following days, some from the state of Washington, from people claiming lawn-theft losses.

"I had to tell people, she's not the thief of the world," Onchi said. "It opened up this door of people stealing things all over the place."

You can reach Dana Tims at 503-294-5973 or by e-mail at danatims@news.oregonian.com.

Copyright 2004 Oregon Live. All Rights Reserved.

Well, I am back. Have been for a few days actually. I have don't know how many of the few people who read this blog realize that I also mantain a blog on our church's web-site. Our web guru, Vince, uses a pretty cool open source asp thingy to allow anyone from our church who wants to have a blog to do so. Anyway, I would encourage your to check out my blog at sonrise in the next day or so, as I intend to blog about our Florida trip with special focus on the 3 and a half hour service we attended on Sunday, complete with dancers and translations into spanish and english. It was awesome.

In this blog, however, I want to turn my attention to the election, which is a continuing obsession of mine. First of all you will note that I have added the Bush/Cheney news feed thingy. I guess there is no hiding my loyalties now. I will blog at length at a later time about why I support our current president, warts and all. For now though, I need to confess a continuing feeling of forboding about the out come of the election. I found this site called election projection and it did my heart good. I especially liked the map of red and blue states that show bush is in pretty good shape, despite current perceptions. I also found the article posted on the site entitled 21 Reasons Bush Will Win to be most encouraging. If you are a supporter of Bush and have some of the same concerns I have, I encourage to take a look. It will help.

Miracles During Filming of "The Passion"

Got this report about the Passion via e-mail this morning for Joel News. I thought I'd share it with you.

Few movies have been discussed before their release as much as Catholic actor Mel Gibson's 'The Passion', a portrait of Jesus Christ of the 12 hours before his crucifixion. In interviews, Mel Gibson tells of astonishing events, even miracles, which occurred during the filming. "Many unusual things happened. For example, people were healed of illnesses; some have regained their hearing and sight. Another was struck by lightning while we were filming the crucifixion, but just stood up and carried on. The power in the script alone is very interesting. There was also the case of a six-year-old girl, daughter of someone connected with the film crew, who has had no epileptic fits for over a month, while she used to have up to fifty fits each day." Gibson is amazed how the film has touched most of the actors and actresses in some deep, personal way.

Jim Caviezel, a devout Catholic who plays the role of Jesus in the film, is convinced that it was the Holy Spirit who led him to play the role. "It is important for me to portray Jesus' character as God intends," he says. "Mel Gibson shows the violence of the events so realistically that some will not be able to look, and will leave, believe me. But many will stay, and will gradually realise the whole truth." "In a world in which pretty much everyone is at each others' throats, this film has a good and very up-to-date message, one of faith, hope, love and forgiveness which will touch people very profoundly, and change them," says Gibson.

Do We Need to Get New Spys

Here is a blog I wrote my church blog. Any comments?

I have been following the David Kay "we were all wrong about WMD's, maybe" story and am wondering . . . What is wrong with the CIA? Do we need to get some new spies?

Kay's theory about the reason for the massive intelligence failure, (if indeed that is what has happened), is that we along with Saddam were victims of a massive Potemkin scam. Poltemkin was the guy who built fake cities for Catherine the Great in Russia, because he couldn't fulfill her orders with real ones. Michael Ledeen at National Review Online blows that story out of the water with this story: Potemkin WMDs. Interesting read that leads me to believe that the WMD's are still out there somewhere.

I also find it interesting that Bush plans to consult personally with Kay to discuss the issue and that Bush has moved so rapidly to recommend an independent investigation into the matter. Go here to read about this development at the AP. I am happy that Bush does not appear to be stonewalling. Of course the AP spin on the story is that its all election year CYA'ing on Bush's part.

Of course one of the most shocking developments about this whole situation is that I find myself agreeing with John Corzine, who believes that CIA Director Tenet's head should roll of this issue. Since Tenet is a hold over from the Clinton era anyway, I would be happy to see him go. I would love to see him replaced with a Director that would invest more in "human" intelligence instead of relying so heavily on high tech gagets like satellites and cameras. Here is an interesting article about why we need real live spys

I Love McGreevey

This from Bob Novak's column on Townsquare.com about our not brilliant Governor's endorsement of Howard Dean.

GUESSING WRONG

New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, who many have guessed wrong in endorsing former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean for president, may find himself challenged for renomination as governor in 2005 by Sen. Jon Corzine.

While McGreevey became the first sitting governor to back Dean shortly before he lost in the Iowa caucuses, Corzine came out for Sen. John Kerry just before he won the New Hampshire primary. New Jersey Democrats say Corzine, a multi-millionaire investment banker who is new to politics, is getting bored with the Senate and is interested in becoming governor.

The wisecrack around the state capitol in Trenton is that McGreevey, with a 34 percent approval rating in New Jersey, is bringing Dean down to his low level of popularity.