Sacramento boy decks out lawn for Halloween only to have expensive animatronic dog stolen
SACRAMENTO -- The search is on for a missing demon dog after a young boy's Halloween decoration was snatched from his east Sacramento yard this week.
"It says 'lost dog.' I jokingly named it Sweetie Pie," said 10-year-old Roman Jovanovic, showing CBS13 the missing poster that now sits in his front yard in the dog's place.
The family said the large, 5-foot-tall animatronic dog decoration was taken in the night from their 59th Street home.
"I was just really upset when I found that someone just stole it," Roman said.
"It made me mad, especially as a mom," said Roman's mom, Mindy Jovanovic.
It took several years for Roman to convince his family to turn up the scare factor on their front lawn Halloween display.
Roman even used a PowerPoint presentation to pitch his parents on why they should make the splurge this year.
"Explaining why we needed a big statement piece. He offered to pitch in his allowance and do extra chores and would be on his best behavior," Mindy said.
Roman's parents surprised him with the expensive animatronic dog, and he's spent every day since then enjoying the scares it brought to his neighbors when they walked by and triggered the dog's motion sensor; but now, Halloween spirits are stolen.
The family said the alleged crime was caught on camera when an adult female walked onto their property and took the dog that was weighed down with a 50-pound weight. They reported the incident to Sacramento police.
"He's such a passionate and idealistic kid and I don't want him to lose that and become hardened to the world because of people like that," Mindy said.
It comes as neighbors on the same street have noticed a frightful trend.
"We're not big Halloween fans but we have noticed there's a lot less Halloween decorations this year. It is a busy street, sometimes things tend to disappear," 59th Street neighbor Matt Olson said.
"Some neighbors reached out to me saying, 'Yeah, the same thing happened to us and what we do is put up signs saying, "You're on camera," or we have them booby-trapped to where people can't steal them,' " Mindy said.
The Jovanovic family hopes that whoever took their demon dog kindly returns him to his proper home, no questions asked.
"I don't like the idea of 'This is why we can't have nice things.' I just think we need to be a little more diligent and spread awareness and let people know they aren't gonna get away with it. If we have to nail it into the ground we will nail it into the ground to keep it on the property," said Mindy.
