Bad Santa Loses His HeadMonday, December 19, 2005
Bad Santa is having a lot of trouble getting ahead in life.
A doll's severed head in a gory "Bad Santa" holiday display has been snatched by dollnappers — who are holding it hostage until the owner writes, "I am sorry for being a bad boy" 1,000 times, according to the New York Post.
"The 7th Avenue Boys for a Merry Christmas," a Brooklyn-based group, stole the doll head Wednesday night, which Joel Krupnik and his family had set up in front of their Manhattan home as part of their bloody "Bad Santa" display.
Before the dollnapping, the set-up showed a skinny Santa Claus clutching a blood-soaked knife in his left hand and the severed head — blood pouring from the eyes — in his right. Krupnik called the display a protest of the commercialization of Christmas.
Krupnik, 58, said he won't negotiate with the headnappers.
"I wouldn't stoop so low," he told the Post. "It's ridiculous."
A leafless tree bearing the headless corpses and severed heads of Barbie Dolls stands in front of the blood-soaked Saint Nick.
"Dean," a spokesman for the "7th Avenue Boys," said the group's "commandos" made a holiday raid on the $3 million brownstone — making the successful headnapping after using lookouts as spies to make sure there were no police around.
In an e-mail including pictures of the captured severed head, "Dean," a father of two, wrote, "Although it's technically illegal, sometimes we have to cross the line and sacrifice our possible well-being to protect children's hearts and minds and their innocence."
The "7th Avenue Boys" will keep holding the head hostage until Krupnik, who they call "this Grinch with a heart darker than Scrooge's," complies with one of two demands, "Dean" said:
— Take the "Bad Santa" display down and write: "I am sorry for being a bad boy. Next year I promise to be on top of Santa's good boy list!" 1,000 times.
— Or, take his family, including his three kids, to watch him sit in Santa's lap at Macy's in Herald Square while he tells him "what a bad boy he has been."
"Dean" said the head will be "handed to our renegade elves at the North Pole and used to make wooden toy dolls for the boys and girls of New York City next Christmas" if Krupnik doesn't meet their demands.
Krupnik told the Post he'd been expecting just such a theft — and he'll just get another head if the dollnappers don't return the old one.
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