On October 18, a crime like no other struck Kansas City, Missouri–someone stole a ten-foot-tall, ten-foot-wide inflatable pink colon, weighing 150 pounds and worth a whopping $4000. Now, what exactly would someone want to do with a pink colon that once acted as a life size colonoscopy simulator? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps, this thief needed some new decor or had a personal vendetta against inflatable colons that only work for the good of the community.
Indeed, earlier that day, this colon, belonging to the Colon Cancer Coalition, appeared at the city’s annual Get Your Rear in Gear Race, a 5k that raises awareness for colorectal cancer. The night of the race, after lying uncovered in a truck in a driveway, the colon disappeared. And when it was pronounced stolen to the public, the city immediately banded together to right this wrong.
Over the next twelve days, the city’s police department endlessly searched for the inflatable, while the University of Kansas Cancer Center offered a $1000 reward for anyone who had any information regarding the crime. Luckily, on October 30, after a much appreciated tip, the police found the colon in a vacant house.
Though the police have yet to identify the thief, the organization claims it will not press charges. After all, the mystery of the stolen colon raised more awareness for colorectal cancer than the inflatable ever could. After the hashtag #stolencolon spread on social media, $11,000 was raised to replace the inflatable–that’s enough for two new colons!
With so much attention being drawn to colorectal cancer because of the stolen colon, Stacie Moody, the organization’s event director, compared the theft to being “kind of like the colon cancer lottery.” But now since everything has worked out so well, some people suspect that there is an underlying conspiracy–that the organization had arranged all this to draw attention to their cause–another twist to an already twisted story! The organization, of course, claims no involvement, but the mystery still remains. Who really stole the colon? And why, oh why, would they steal it in the first place?