Raymond Russell stands next to the statue of a dragon that was recently taken from the yard of his daughter-in-law, Jeannie Russell. The dragon was to be a birthday gift to Randy Russell, Jeannie's husband and Raymond's son, in 2001. Randy Russell died in a car accident two weeks before his birthday.

Jeannie Russell considered the concrete dragon taken from her front yard over the weekend more than just a 600-pound statue.

It was a memorial to her late husband, Randy Russell, and the short four-month marriage they enjoyed before he was killed in a car accident on July 8, 2001.

That’s why Jeannie Russell said she was more than a little upset when she realized Saturday that the statue was gone.

“You could tell where they drove up in the yard to get it,” Jeannie Russell said of the thieves. She filed a report with the Lawrence Police Department.

Randy Russell’s three sons also were distraught, Jeannie Russell said. Jason, 22, Bradley, 21, and Joshua, 15, intended to give the statue to their dad, who was to turn 39 two weeks after he died. They were in the process of paying off the statue before bringing it home, Jeannie said.

Randy Russell, who was a landscape maintenance supervisor at Kansas University and Boy Scouts troop master, had seen the statue in a store and commented about how he liked it, his wife said.

“Anything that had to do with landscaping, he liked,” Jeannie Russell said. “That was his thing. He liked to decorate yards.”

The statue comes in three 200-pound sections. Russell estimates its value at $200 to $250.

“All my neighbors knew about it and liked it,” she said. “It’s depressing that somebody thought they needed to do this.”

Russell said she thinks the statue was taken sometime Friday night or Saturday morning. Her home is surrounded by three empty lots, and nearby neighbors didn’t see anything suspicious, she said.

Russell has posted signs about the missing statue around the mobile home park where she lives at 1900 W. 31st, lot M-22. Anyone with information can call her at 841-7955, or her father-in-law, Raymond Russell, 842-5862, or they can call police.

“I’d offer a reward, but I don’t have the money,” she said.