Careless vandal destroys part of Southern Downs Heritage
IT ONLY took little more than 24 hours for someone to deface and destroy a brand new historical installation outside the Killarney Heritage Centre.
The life-like statue of much loved Killarney identity Eric Reis was installed with much of his family present on Saturday morning.
On Sunday evening it was vandalised.
Tony Pearson, president of the Killarney Historical Society, said a traveller was sitting in Canning Park on Sunday evening around 5pm and reported seeing a young lady approach the statue.
“He said she tried to remove the whip from the statue and in the process broke about two feet of the whip handle off,” Mr Pearson said.
“There’s a fence there. It’s very clear the area is out of bounds.”
Mr Pearson said the bulls had also been damaged.
“Twice now they’ve needed to be fixed,” he said.
“We’ll now have to spend thousands of dollars of raised and donated money on security cameras.
“This young lady has made a silly mistake and we’d urge her to come forward.”
The statue will now need to be repaired before the dedication of the memorial on Saturday, August 13.
