Buddha swiped from Carson City porch

Linda Kitson's "Enlightened One" was lifted off her porch.

Overnight Wednesday as she slept in her new home on North Nevada Street, someone relieved her of the

40-pound Buddha statue Kitson's had for at least a dozen years.

It's not a big deal that he's gone, said Kitson. If someone had knocked on her door and said they loved her Buddha, she would have given it to them, she said. But that they stole it has outraged the Carson City resident.

"I'm curious as to why they'd take the Buddha. Maybe they needed Buddha's energy," she said. "I'm just surprised that it couldn't sit on my front porch in Carson City."

Kitson hopes someone may have seen the statue and would be willing to help her bring it home.

Or that whoever took it will bring it back the cement idol she'd purchased from a garden center many moons ago because of the peaceful look on its face.

"I've meditated in front of this Buddha, said prayers for world peace in front of this Buddha," she said. " I'm hoping they just loved it so much and it called to them so loudly that they had to take it."

But for them to steal it, Kitson said in disgust, it's almost too much.

"Hey, we have war, we have poverty, we have volcanos and cyclones and floods going, what's the point of stealing someone's Buddha?" she asked.

She has some words that might awaken their sense of right and wrong.

"These people don't know what they got, it's like charged with all of this loving spiritual energy," she said. "I want to get the message out that as stealthily as they took it, they should just bring it back."

If you know anything about Kitson's purloined Buddha, contact Carson City Sheriff's Deputy Bill Richards at 887-2020 ext. 45293.