No Alcatraz for the Collector

Wealthy recluse, dubbed the Collector by the media, will not be sent to Alcatraz, as requested.

While awaiting his sentencing, Silas Snodgrass, otherwise known as the Collector, joked with the media that he wanted to visit Alcatraz so he could start rebuilding his collection.

The Collector remains seemingly remorseless about his crimes. “Listen,” he said after his trial, “Nobody even noticed that I was collecting these things. And now that they have, people are really appreciating these monuments more than they ever have before. I only did it because I respect the work.” Snodgrass’ inventive “state-of-nature” defense failed miserably in the face of international outrage.

The Collector was arrested in Rome last May when he was caught transporting tiny colored tiles back to Canada in the lining of his jacket. He had chiseled the tiles out of a rather prurient mosaic in Pompeii with a nail file. It was later discovered that Snodgrass had been transporting tiles three or four at a time for years and meticulously rebuilding the artwork in his master bathroom in his stately Toronto home.

It was also discovered that his front steps were lintels ransacked from Stonehenge. The Collector had also constructed a massive koi pond with keystone bricks from the Great Wall of China and a rock garden from Canada’s own famous Inukshuk sculpture. The fish which inhabited the pond seem to have been acquired legally. Inside the Collector’s home, investigators found a glass-topped coffee table. The surface of the table had been reconstructed from stained glass pinched from France’s Notre Dame Cathedral. And the base of the table was made out of the marble tree stump reported missing from Michaelangelo’s David three years ago. They also found the top three feet of the 4500 year old Khufu pyramid. Snodgrass had turned it upside down and scooped out the inside and was using it as an ashtray. He also hung his coats in the front foyer on a dozen purloined Terra Cotta Warriors of the Qin Dynasty. The Collector still refuses to reveal how he managed to transport these priceless antiquities.

Snodgrass, surprisingly, still appears to be in good humor. Last week he said, “The British Museum has more foreign artifacts than I could ever hope to have. I will follow the British Museum’s lead. How about that?”

The home countries for these priceless artifacts and historically significant materials are eager to get their antiquities back. But of course they remain in state evidence.

When asked if there was anything that he wanted that he could not have Snodgrass said, straight-faced, “I always though that the Arc of the Covenant would make a great footstool. I know the best upholsterer.”

SS