EVERETT — When nine plastic skeletons were stolen from Paul Irwin’s Everett residence in late September, he didn’t expect four of them to turn up miles away, damaged and discarded in Bothell the next day.
Little did he know, this was the beginning of a string of vandalism incidents surrounding his family’s yearly light show.
When the Irwin family transitioned from themed LED Christmas lights to ones synchronized to music in 2017, it was the start of a community tradition in their front yard. Located at 10513 27th Drive Southeast, Irwin Family Lights attracts thousands of visitors each Christmas and hundreds each Halloween to the free light show.
“There could be maybe 50 or 100 people out in front of our house at any given time,” Irwin said in an interview Tuesday. “If the weather’s nice, people will be out standing on the sidewalk or in the driveway.”
In 2019, they upgraded their usual Halloween display to a light show. Aside from minor incidents over the years, including a couple of knocked-over skeletons and a stolen zombie hand, the annual show has continued mostly unscathed until this year.
On Sept. 28, the family had yet to finish stringing lights and securing part of the display known as the “skeleton army,” which contains 19 skeletons of varying sizes, Irwin said. Sometime after 9:30 p.m., nine skeletons were stolen from the family’s yard.
The next day, four skeletons, along with parts of different plastic skeletons, were found thrown over the fence into a backyard in the Tambark Creek area of Bothell. The remaining five were never found, he said.
Around 3 p.m. Oct. 7, three teens damaged three 12-foot ghosts, the “toxic ooze” scene, some pumpkins and lighted trees in the front yard. Based on video footage obtained by Irwin, he believes the same suspects returned around 9:30 p.m. and damaged the recently rebuilt “skeleton army.”
“We had added cables to secure the skeletons to nearby bushes to prevent them from being stolen again,” he said in an email. “Many of the skeletons were damaged, cracked, or broken plastic, along with the support structures and wiring.”
Irwin said neighbors recognized the suspects as students at a nearby school. The family decided to file a police report and is seeking social media content related to the vandalism.
“From some of the videos that we have of them causing the damage, it looks like one of them is holding a camera,” he said. “Our guess is, then, that they’re doing that to post it somewhere. We’ve tried looking. We haven’t been able to find anything.”
Around 1 a.m. Oct. 10, a group of suspects knocked over the 8-foot and 12-foot skeletons on top of the already damaged decorations. The skeletons’ metal frames were bent, the plastic was cracked or broken and the lighting sustained damage, Irwin said in an email.
“It seems like we’re definitely being targeted,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s personally at us or just because the size and scale of what we have for a Halloween display means there’s lots of stuff for them to destroy.”
For the family, the light show is a labor of love. The setup begins in mid-September and takes three to four weekends of long days to prepare. After repeated acts of vandalism, they’ve lost motivation to get things back up and running again.
“What really made it hard was the repeated attacks and knowing I just don’t have the time or energy to try to rebuild as fast as they could destroy,” Irwin said in an email. “I enjoy the creative and technical challenges of building the display, but the real reward is seeing how much kids enjoy it.”
However, the show must go on. Irwin said the lights will continue on the same time and dates, albeit with some modifications.
“We essentially took everything out of our yard,” he said. “What’s left is just the lights and some things that we have on our house.”
Attendees can experience the lights from 6:30 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. On Friday and Saturday, the show extends to 11 p.m., according to an Irwin Family Lights social media post. Speakers in the yard will play music until 10 p.m., but drivers can tune their radio to 87.9FM.
For the Christmas display, Irwin said they will shift focus to securing the decorations. In the past, the main concern had been ensuring the display could endure fluctuating weather conditions.
“Those are not the same type of things that we would do against someone who wanted to steal or break things,” he said. “We’re definitely having to reconsider what we do or what we put out.”
Irwin said he hopes to raise awareness, not just for his display, but for others as well.
“It’s also not just us,” he said. “I mean, there’s other people that, even having smaller displays, their stuff gets wrecked too.”
Jenna Millikan: 425-339-3035; jenna.millikan@heraldnet.com; X: @JennaMillikan
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