A neighborhood was plagued by a cat burglar with a love of soft toys, until he was caught red handed and given help to leave his life of crime behind.
A Current Affair reported that residents of a sleepy suburb in Brisbane, Australia, were waking up to find pilfered toys left on their doorsteps by Kylo the ginger tabby who earned the moniker ‘Pirate Kitty’.
A life of crime
Kylo was slipping out of his owner’s home every night and prowling the neighborhood, sneaking into people’s houses and stealing every soft toy he could find.
Before the sun came up, Kylo would bafflingly leave the stolen toys on the doorsteps of his neighbors. One of those neighbors named Kay McCall had this to say about the naughty kitty’s antics:
“It was kind of like waking up to presents on Christmas morning. We thought the kids next door must have thrown them over, didn’t think much about it but the toys continued to come,”
Caught in the act
Early one morning Kay and her husband solved the mystery of where the toys were coming from when they caught Kylo in the caught of dropping off his stolen booty.
Despite rumbling the kitty thief, his lawless ways continued and the McCalls reported that he even started to leave them more stolen toys than before. As Kay explained to A Current Affair:
“He continued to bring us presents. Sometimes there was one, sometimes there were as many as four,”
Crimes exposed
After a month of receiving these stolen goods, Kay McCall was able to fill an entire table with the booty that Kylo had dropped off.
Curious to see if anyone else was receiving presents from Kylo, and hoping to return some of the stolen items to their rightful owners, Kay posted a picture of all the toys the cat had gifted her on her local community Facebook page.
The post gained much attention and many of Kay’s neighbors chimed in that they too had been waking up to discover presents that Kylo had left on their doorsteps.
New home needed
When Kylo became a local celebrity, his mortified owners came forward and admitted that they were aware of his behavior but had found themselves unable to curb it.
They explained that they didn’t have the means to keep Kylo as a solely indoor cat and had run out of options for stopping his thieving ways, they decided that this cheeky cat burglar needed a new home.
Kylo leaves crime behind
Thankfully a neighbor of Kylo’s owners named Ingrid Moyle had been keeping up with his thieving antics online and fallen in love with the mischievous cat, she explained:
“I was a fan of Kylo from the very first post that I saw on the local community Ridgee Didge page and so Kylo joined our household.”
Kylo now lives with the Moyle family and they report that he is now an indoor cat so has been forced to leave his life of thievery behind.
But, Ingrid revealed that they have taken to hiding toys around the house so that Kylo can search them out and feel a little bit of the thrill that his old life gave him.