TWO dressed-up skeletons which became a surprise hit with passers-by have been swiped from a front garden. 

The duo, called Mr and Mrs Bones by owner Taryn-vee Burnett, were stolen from her home on Mountdale Gardens on Monday night.

The discovery has rocked the Leigh community, with the iconic pair known for dressing up on Halloween, Christmas and cheering up the community through the Covid pandemic.

The remains of Mrs Bones have been found lifeless in a nearby street but Mr Bones is still missing.

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Taryn, 45, said: “I put a message on Facebook hoping he could be found and have had such an overwhelming response. 

“I hadn’t realised how many people would come past and stop to look.

“A few years back we had a single skeleton up sort of just as a Halloween decoration, but that got stolen when we moved it closer to the road and I guess it became an easy target.

“Then we got these two - we’ve had them ever since and our neighbours and passersby have had a good laugh out of it.

“We’re always thinking of different things for them to do. Around Christmas we dressed them up and Mr Bones had an elf-kini on.

“When lockdown was re-announced Mrs Bones had a bottle of wine and Mr Bones had a bottle of rum which was quite funny.” 

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Taryn noticed the couple were missing after going out for a walk before work on Tuesday morning.

She added: “Some of our neighbours said they heard a noise about 11pm in the night and that they saw some teenagers trashing something.

“We then found the remains of one of them on Sandhurst Crescent, but we haven’t found the remains of the other. We’ve just got the bits of her that survived, but Mr Bones is still AWOL.”

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But Taryn, and her husband Hamish, still plan to replace them to “give people a smile”.

She added: “It’s sort of become a landmark for the area, so it is really sad they’re gone.

"More recently we put bottles of Brewdog Lager in the snow next to them and ironically the last photos we took had the word ‘lost’ in them.

“We’d planned on setting up a Valentines Day meal for them and with Easter coming up we would’ve put bunny ears on them and bits like that.

“Sometimes my husband Hamish gets a bit carried away and is a bit rude, but we never leave it like that where there’s schools nearby. We had one of them in the stocks at Halloween and have put scarves and clothes on them as well.

“We are still going to replace them, it’s become a part of this house and gives a smile to the people around us. We want to try and keep it up, so I’ve already been looking on eBay and some other sites too. 

“Annoyingly it’s the wrong time of the year to look for a skeleton, but I will keep trying. I think we need a good laugh at the moment especially during lockdown.”