Here’s one of the articles I have in my backlog of items to share; it is from a while back.
Back in December, a respectably large cache of garden gnomes was discovered in a Mount Vernon, Washington resident’s back yard when high winds knocked down her fence. The fence was concealing around sixty yard gnomes — at least some apparently stolen from other yards -— along with other yard ornaments. See the link for more details.
Seattle P-I: Gnome-napping: Thefts may have created backyard statue stash.