Hundreds of dollars worth of Halloween decorations stolen in central Columbia

For the Cedeno family, decorating their front yard for Halloween is a family tradition.

“My kids love to help me do it,” said Apolo Cedeno. “It’s a big festive thing for us. We love Halloween.”

Cedeno said their lawn display has about $1,000 worth of decorations, which catches the attention of many in the neighborhood along West Rollins Road.

“We get a lot of compliments on it. People say ‘Don’t take down your decorations.’ They love it,” he said. “Then you get some people that think it’s a little bit gory or what have you. It’s not to offend anybody, we just like to have fun.”

Cedeno and his family just wrapped up more than a week’s worth of decorating Sunday night, when they woke up the next morning to find some valuable pieces missing.

He said the combined total of the stolen decorations was between $300-$350 and they had just bought one prop a few days before.

The family filed a police report and also posted pictures of their missing decorations on Facebook and Craigslist.

The Columbia Police Department said they receive so many reports of theft on a daily basis that it would take some time to determine the exact number of Halloween decoration theft reports during the holiday season.

“Maybe somebody wanted them for their own. I don’t know,” Cedeno said. “I just want to get my stuff back at least, because it takes a lot of time effort and money to put a display together like this.”

The Cedeno family said they are going to invest in some new technology to watch over their Halloween display.

“We’re definitely going to start putting a couple WiFi cameras outside just to protect our displays. Other than that we just want everybody to enjoy it.”