THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 8, 1996 TAG: 9602080026
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONI WHITT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
SHE WAS minding her own business, caroling on a Churchland lawn, when she was kidnapped and taken for a wild ride down through the Southeast and across the Midwest.
Carol, as her kidnappers called her, was an innocent wooden lawn ornament. Who knows why the kidnappers picked her from the five such carolers set out on Wayne and Margaret Coburn's front lawn for Christmas?
Perhaps it was the blue hue of her gown, the rich browns in her hair, or the expression on her face as she reached for a high note.
Some of the places they took her - pool halls, bars - would make a choir girl blush.
Not Carol. She remained stoic in the vacation pictures. All 62 of them.
The photographic evidence of her travels was found hanging around her neck after she was discovered leaning against a telephone pole near her home more than a month after her disappearance.
Garnett Gibbons, a neighbor of the Coburns, found Carol.
But the kidnappers had a fallback plan in case she had gone undiscovered.
Two weeks ago, the Coburns received a postcard featuring Carol in front of Stone Mountain in Georgia.
The card said: ``Hi, If you don't already have me, I'm at 4509 W. Norfolk Rd. I had a great trip. Hope everyone had a nice Christmas and New Years without me. Later, Carol''
The pictures around Carol's neck offered clues about her captors. They drive a maroon Dodge Intrepid - but they changed the license plates for each snapshot that included the car. One is a strawberry blond male and has a short military-style haircut. The other wore a towel on his head in the only picture in which he appeared.
Carol's captors took her to Graceland, Elvis' home in Tennessee; to the Professional Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio; to the Superdome in New Orleans; Stone Mountain in Atlanta; to Alexander Hamilton's statue in Chicago; to Georgia's State House; to someplace called the Possum Trot School; and to Alabama for a NASCAR race at Talladega Raceway.
In the world of kidnapped lawn ornaments, Carol got off easy.
In 1992, a gnome in Calgary, Canada, was stolen and taken on an 18-month odyssey around the world - including stops at Disneyland, Australia and Alaska - before being returned to his owners. He came back bearing a diary and photo album containing 54 pictures of the trip.
In 1993, a plastic pink flamingo nicknamed Phil was stolen from a yard in Athens, Ga., and taken on a 14,000-mile trip across the country. Phil would mail his owners pictures from places such as the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls. A 26-year-old photographer later confessed to the kidnapping. Phil's owners thought the prank was funny.
But the owners of a small, but heavy, concrete cow didn't find its disappearance hilarious. They called authorities, and a 21-year-old college student who had kidnapped the 90-pound cow was caught before he could leave town. The cow was cracked. The owners pressed charges and the student was sentenced to 24 hours of community service.
Carol's owners would like to meet her kidnappers, but they say they don't want to prosecute.
``They took the time to try to keep her looking nice. They made sure she was in every picture and even had a postcard done up,'' Wayne Coburn said. ``I kind of think I'd like to meet them. Not to press charges but to know the reason they did it. They were nice enough to return her, to do the pictures and even send us a post card thanking us. It was something different.''
Gibbons, the neighbor who found Carol, wants to meet the guys just to tell them that the next time they take such a trip, they can take her - not the doll.
``She's really been around,'' Gibbons said. ``I'd like to have the time and money to do something like that.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
More than a month after their Christmas lawn ornament was stolen,
Margaret and Wayne Coburn recieved this final picture postcard -
showing Carol at Stone Mountain near Atlanta.
Carol on the road over the Mississippi River.
Color photo by Mark Mitchell/The Virginian-Pilot
A Happy ending: A neighbor, Garnett Gibbons, found Carol.
by CNB