Mysterious disappearance of Garry the gorilla leads police helicopter to Melbourne back yard
A month after it was allegedly stolen, Victoria police will return a beloved gorilla statue to its rightful home at a Melbourne retirement village after using its air wing to find “Garry” in a back yard.
Garry, a 1.5-metre statue, was reported stolen from the Leith Park retirement village – north-east of the Melbourne CBD – on 6 June.
Police said in a statement they were not willing to “cop this kind of monkey business” when the statue was reported stolen, so investigators “threw their all” into locating Garry.
After “extensive investigations”, police narrowed in on a residence in Reservoir, roughly a 20-minute drive from the retirement village.
The force’s air wing was called in for the task, and helicopter pilots spotted the statue in a back yard.
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A search warrant was executed at the residence on Monday, and police were set to return Garry to the entrance of Leith Park on Wednesday afternoon.
Tim Nelson, the executive manager of marketing for Abound Communities, which owns the retirement village, said residents were excited about Garry’s return, with one woman even baking cookies.
“One of our residents bakes cookies with her grandson and takes the cookies over to Garry, so I spoke with Robyn this morning and Robyn’s already baking cookies ready to take back when Garry arrives this afternoon,” he told Guardian Australia.
Nelson said it was a resident who first noticed Garry was missing last month. They said “G’day” to him in the morning, but when they returned in the afternoon, Garry was not there.
Police said that investigations into the alleged theft remain ongoing, and anyone who witnessed anything suspicious or who has CCTV footage is urged to contact Crime Stoppers.
This is not the first time a beloved gorilla statue with such a nickname has gone missing. In Scotland, a giant 2.4-metre gorilla statue was allegedly stolen from a Scottish garden centre more than a year ago and reunited with its owner in March.
The BBC reported that staff responsible for maintaining Scotland’s trunk roads network discovered the fibreglass statue in a layby after reading an article about his disappearance. The workers tracked down the garden centre on social media and arranged for the owner to collect him.
The Scottish “Gary the Gorilla” was used as a signpost to the centre and was popular among locals, dressing up for Christmas and even sporting a face mask during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sadly, however, only half of Gary was returned – the garden centre has said it was still searching for his better half, with Gary’s “back” having come home.
Victoria police said they “couldn’t confirm” a link between the two incidents as they were unsure of Garry’s origins.
Nelson put any fears of an international gorilla statue-theft syndicate to bed, confirming that Garry arrived at the village five years ago – alongside two other African animal statues – as a gift from Northcote Pottery.
“There’s no chance [of a link],” he laughed. “No connection to Gary the Gorilla in Scotland.”