Police in San Francisco discovered a valuable British pre-historic wooden artifact during the arrest of a man for drunk & disorderly behavior on Friday evening. The eighteen inch tall carved figure of a man, has been identified by experts as the “Dagenham Idol”, a 4500 year old Neolithic artifact that went missing from a castle in England a year ago.
SFPD answered a complaint call from a neighbor reporting a man dancing naked and chanting loudly in his back yard on Clement St. A police spokesman said the man’s wife allowed officers onto the property where they found Nigel Bunt, a US Citizen who was born in the town of Dagenham in the United Kingdom, in a condition of inebriation. Bunt pleaded with officers to help him “harness the power of the Idol” and told police “they would perish if the warnings of the Idol were ignored”. Bunt was taken into police custody where he is undergoing psychiatric evaluation.
Bunt’s wife Dawn Bunt gave the police the carving, and told them it was the source of her husband’s distress. Bunt had carved a 6 foot tall replica of the idol in his back yard with a chainsaw and was dancing around it and was burning an illegal bonfire when police arrived. Dawn told the police Nigel had brought the Idol back from England after a recent visit home. The police contacted experts at the DeYoung Museum who were able to identify the carved figure from a report by Interpol. The piece was stolen from Colchester Castle Museum in Essex, England in November of 2009 during Bunt’s last visit to his hometown.
When questioned about the Idol, Bunt admitted the theft. He told the police “I was visiting Colchester Castle and the Idol spoke to me, as soon as I saw it I felt its power, its hard to describe, I just suddenly felt Neolithic and I knew I had to have it”. “When I came back to San Francisco strange things began to happen, I soon felt my life spinning out of control and I knew it was the power of the Idol, I thought I could speak to it and it would help me but the more I spoke to it the worse things got”.
A curator from Colchester Castle Museum said in a statement Friday “It’s a relief to all of us that the Dagenham Idol is safe and will be returned to Colchester, it has a bizarre history and its exact meaning and value in Neolithic Culture are still being studied. Some very odd and unpleasant things have happened to people who have dealt with the Idol over the centuries, it is said to be cursed”.
Since returning to San Francisco with the Idol, Bunt’s personal life had taken several bizarre turns. “My construction business really took off when I got back, despite the recession I started making more money than ever, while everyone else was struggling I was having success, it had to be the power of the Idol-then all of a sudden everything turned upside down, my cat died and then my favorite cactus, and then I got a visit from the IRS and things really went downhill, I started drinking heavily and gambling and I squandered all the money I had made, Dawn threatened to leave me, worst of all, my football team started losing every game”.
When interviewed by this reporter Dawn Bunt said “I am standing by my husband for now, I thought his obsession with the Idol was crazy at first, but now I see the damage it has done to him I think he may be right about its evil powers, I am glad it is being returned to Colchester Castle where it belongs so we can return to life as normal here, I arranged to have the six foot tall copy of the Idol removed from our yard, I hope the men who took it will destroy it before it causes more harm”
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