"WITCH" BEAR STOLEN

Lucas: On Halloween Eve Day last year, Reverend Richard Piper tried to burn a teddy bear at the stake, condemning it for witchcraft. Fortunately, Sheriff's Deputy John Osbourne was able to rescue the little fellow and returned it to young Jack Narby (see: Teddy Bear Sentenced for Witchcraft, November, 1997: vol. 4, Issue #11).

     Since then, a special vote has been held to determine whether Irish Grove still needs the Office of Witch Finder, of which Rev. Piper was the sole officer. Surprisingly, the town voted in favor of keeping the office. When asked to explain their vote, most citizens answered along the lines of, "Better safe than sorry."

     But when Jack Narby's mother, Alice, phoned in to the police department on July 21, it seemed that maybe Rev. Piper was intending to finish what he had started.

     "I had sent Jack to bed at about nine," explains Alice. "As always, he took Rags, his teddy bear, with him. After a while, I started to doze off in front of the television. That's when I heard Jack shouting from his room. I ran to him, and by God, the bear wasn't there anymore. I searched all around his room. It wasn't under the covers, it hadn't fallen under the bed---it was just nowhere. Jack said that there were two men had come into the room, and demanded that he give them the bear. He did, even though he says now that he didn't want to. I don't know how they got into my house, or how I couldn't have waken up when they did, but somehow Rev. Piper's lackeys came back and got my son's teddy bear!"

     Deputy Osbourne is not sure that Piper is involved this time around. He looked for evidence at the scene of the crime, and could find nothing, not even a fingerprint. He questioned the reverend, and Piper wholly denies any involvement in the bear theft.

     "That trial is over and done with," he says, bright eyes glinting. "I am leaving that stuffed spawn of Evil for God to judge." Rev. Piper has agreed to allow Irish Grove police to search his quarters at the First Church of the Last Days, but so far, the department hasn't taken him up on the offer.

     One clue to the mystery is the eyewitness testimony of Gilbert Parker, a neighbor of the Narbys. He, too was watching television the night Jack's teddy bear was stolen. He happened to glance out the window at about 9:15, and saw a dark-colored car parked in front of the Narby home. As he watched, two men dressed in black suits and ties and wearing sunglasses came out of the house. One had a teddy bear tucked under his arm. They got into the back seat of the car, which sped off. Parker could not make out a license plate, and comments that the car was almost silent.

     So perhaps Rev. Piper is not involved in the theft. But now we must also ask, why would the Men in Black be interested in a small boy's teddy bear?