Specializing in the taxidermy of critters since 1998, Keith and Denise Bowman were greeted by a live version of one of their most popular subjects as they arrived for work last week.
After moving to their newly-minted location in Walnut Cove, NC at the end of May, things were going swimmingly until the phone rang at the couple’s home around 3 a.m. last Sunday. On the end of the line was a North Carolina sheriff’s deputy stating he was investigating a potential break and enter at the couple’s taxidermy shop.
As the Stokes County deputy began to explain, the Bowman’s eventually came to recognize that this was not your average B&E.
“You have a deer in your building, you need to get over there and secure it,” Denise Bowman recalled in an interview with WGHP-TV. “I said, ‘Is this a joke?'”
In what many jokingly referred to as some sort of rescue mission, the deer had crashed through the front glass window, bounced around inside causing upwards of $3,000 worth of damage and eventually safely escaped.
His stuffed counterpart remains a fixture in the building.
“Sometimes, I think, I need to write a book. It’s just amazing at the events that take place,” the couple wrote on the store’s Facebook page.