Boasts could expose culprits in decapitation of Australian dinosaur replicas

[August 08, 2017]    (Reuters) - Australian police on Tuesday said they expected the individuals who decapitated three dinosaur replicas at a museum to boast about their trophies to friends, so bringing about their own exposure.

The theft of the heads of three raptor models was discovered on Sunday in an outdoor display area at the National Dinosaur Museum in Canberra, police in the Australian capital territory said on their website.

Police said the miscreants, shown by preliminary investigation to have used a hacksaw or angle grinder, might be planning to keep the fibreglass heads as trophies.

"We're expecting these perpetrators, because they're obviously not very smart, will tell people about it," the Australian Broadcasting Corp quoted station sergeant Rod Anderson as saying.

"It's a pretty stupid act, but if we could get it back for the museum, that'd be great."

It is not the first faux dinosaur theft at the museum, where an entire model was taken in 2013, but found later in a crime attributed to a birthday prank.

(Writing by Karishma Singh and James Regan; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.