A missing large ceramic clown that used to “play” the Wurlitzer piano at a Joyland Amusement Park in Wichita, Kansas, has turned up in the home of a man found guilty of child sex crimes.
Louie the Clown went missing around 2005 or 2006, but wasn’t reported stolen until 2010. On Tuesday this week, when investigating a case tied to Damien Mays, a former employee of the Joyland Amusement Park and a convicted sexual offender, a detective
discovered the well-known clown, The Wichita Eagle reported.
Detective Matt Lang placed Louie the Clown at the front of the room during a police briefing on Thursday. "Obviously, you see someone sitting next to me who is known as an icon in the city of Wichita," Lang said, the Eagle reported. "There was a lot of social media interest that kind of led and kept this case alive. After some investigation, went to a residence and was able to obtain a permission from that individual and located Louie inside the residence. We then obtained a search warrant to recover Louie and here he sits today."
According to Roadtrippers, the Joyland Amusement Park operated in the city for 55 years, closing in 2004. The abandoned property today has been looted and vandalized, the site said, and is reportedly haunted by a little girl who died falling from a Ferris wheel.
The clown is valued at about $10,000, the Eagle said, and Lang said the department would pursue charges against Mayes.
“In the years since he disappeared, Louie the Clown obtained urban legend status,” the Eagle wrote.
“Like Lazarus rising from the dead, we have Louie the Clown recovered,” Greg Kite, president of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Wichita and Sedgwick County, told the Eagle. “We have been working on this for months, accumulating information, photographs and statements.”
Of course, as the story went viral, someone created a Twitter account for Louie. He’s already tweeting political observations.
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