$1 million for the robot gorilla and nobody gets hurt
Last seen: East Machias, waving hello, on repeat, forever
It was a brazen crime, committed in broad daylight on one of the busiest weekends of the year. Somehow, no one saw the kidnappers, who managed to get away with their victim without alerting anyone. It made headlines all across the country for weeks afterwards.
An eight-foot mechanical gorilla named Seamore was stolen from the front door of Sandy’s Sales, a flea market and salvage store on Route 1 in East Machias, Maine on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend in 2008.
Owners Lowell and Sandy Miller were known for their marketing flair – first, with their dog Susie, who regularly appeared in advertisements sporting all manner of dog costumes, and then with Seemore, who was custom made for the Millers in the early 1990s as an unusual roadside attraction.
The Millers didn’t even notice Seamore was gone until they were preparing to close up for the day. Seamore, who had spent nearly 20 years gyrating from side to side and moving her arms up and down, greeting customers at the shop, was wheeled in each night specifically so she wouldn’t be stolen by unruly youths - or that her innards could be harvested for the gorilla robot transplant black market.
Still, Seamore’s sheer size and bulk made her a challenging prospect for a would-be thief. In addition to being eight feet tall, she was affixed to a solid concrete base.
“Who the hell would ever steal a gorilla as heavy as that thing was?” Lowell Miller said at the time, according to the Bangor Daily News.
The Millers called the Maine State Police, who started an investigation. Their best lead was that a student at the nearby University of Maine at Machias stole it, and it was sitting in somebody’s apartment, waiting to be found. The story of Seamore’s kidnapping, however, was picked up by the Associated Press, and within a few days it had made headlines all over the world – and had caught the eye of Ken Booth, who at the time operated the appropriately-named Gorilla Robot Factory in Akron, Ohio, which advertised itself as makers of fine mechanical gorillas to “attract people to your business.” Booth was the creator of Seamore, and he was outraged that someone would kidnap his robot ape daughter.
Booth posted a video to YouTube on Sept. 6, asking Seamore’s kidnappers to return the gorilla to his home Down east, and offering a reward of $500 for his safe return.
That night, the thieves responded with their own video - masked and dressed in all black, and speaking through a sock puppet intermediary, the kidnappers demanded $1 million in ransom for Seamore, who stood, emotionless, in the background.
Readers, I have scoured the internet for this video. If it exists, it’s not on any public website. I cannot tell you how disappointed I am that I haven’t been able to find it. I feel like the search function on YouTube for old videos has really been ruined by AI slop and the constant, unceasing need to shove ads in front of our faces. It’s like what’s happening to all the weird movies and home videos and other random content that were on VHS in the 80s and 90s, and are now mostly inaccessible and slowly deteriorating until they completely disappear. What is the internet for, if not for 17-year-old videos of people demanding via sock puppet $1 million in ransom for a stolen robot gorilla? - Emily
To their credit, the people in the video ended their response apologizing for the mess and admitting they’d be happy to unload their gorilla captive. On behalf of the Millers, Booth emailed back and forth with the kidnappers, trying to arrange a pickup.
“He said he’d drop it off somewhere and call authorities,” Booth told the BDN in 2008. “I said, ‘That’s not good enough. We need to know where it is. We want to bring our monkey home.’”
Eventually, Booth and the Millers were informed by the kidnappers that Seamore was in a cornfield in St. Albans, Vermont, and to call the Vermont State Police so they could pick it up. There was one big problem, however. The Millers, who were both in their late 70s at the time, had one vehicle: a battered old truck. Lowell didn’t think he and Sandy could make it all the way from Maine to Vermont and back without something on the truck giving out.
More than 200 miles away in the Oxford County town of Waterford, Annette Farrington saw a story about the missing gorilla and the Millers’ plight on TV. Farrington’s daughter lived 30 miles from St. Albans. She decided she’d drive there, have a visit, pick up Seamore from the police barracks on the way back and return him to East Machias.
Newspapers referred to her as a good samaritan. Farrington said she just wanted to teach her three kids - Isaiah, Emmanuel and Gabe - a lesson. And maybe have a little fun while doing it.
“It’s all about teaching my boys community service,” she said. “When you do it, you end up reaping more than you sow, and I want them to know that too.”
A few nights prior, Farrington sewed some little gorilla stuffed animals for her boys to give to Seamore when they finally met her. On Friday, Sept. 12, the Farringtons loaded up into their big truck and headed to Vermont, with a sign stuck on her bumper reading ”Seamore Rescue Team.” On Saturday morning, they busted the gorilla robot out of protective custody, loaded her into the bed and commenced the seven-hour ride back to Downeast Maine.
Seamore bore the scars of her ordeal. Her head was partially severed from his body, and there were holes and rips in her rubber face. One of her arms appeared to be broken. Sandy Miller later said she thought the kidnappers should pay to repair her - but the thieves were never caught.
A few miles outside of East Machias, the Farringtons were joined by a procession including Washington County sheriff’s deputies blaring their sirens, and were greeted at Sandy’s Sales by the Machias Ukulele Orchestra performing, among other songs, Paul Simon’s “Mother and Child Reunion.” Seamore was reunited with the Millers and returned to her post at the shop – now, behind a protective barrier, to keep her from being absconded with a second time.
It’s not known exactly when the Millers retired and Sandy’s Sales closed, but Lowell Miller died in 2019. Last year, the Machias Valley News Observer reported that the building that housed Sandy’s Sales was demolished, with plans to build a new medical facility on the site.
It’s unclear what ultimately happened to Seamore – if she went to live with the Millers after the business closed, if she was sold to another business, or if she was crushed by the bulldozers alongside his former home. Is she still greeting people with the same sideways gyration and up and down wave, in front of a different shop? Is she even still functional? Or is she, like old YouTube videos and VHS tapes and real gorillas, an endangered species - or worse, gone forever?
Do you know what happened to Seamore? Do you have the kidnappers’ YouTube video? Have you had something ridiculous stolen and held for fake ransom? Have you done that yourself? Email me at emilyburnham207@gmail.com and let me know.
UPDATE 5 p.m. Aug. 19: Reader Matt Sullivan - clearly a FAR superior YouTube/Google searcher than I! - has located the ransom video. It was posted by YouTube user sammielongdong, and it’s pretty much exactly as advertised. Thank you, Matt! This is the content I crave.
And, the follow-up video, in which sammielongdong rides a tricycle in I think an homage to the original “Saw” movie, and disputes reports that Seamore is eight feet tall and weighs 150 pounds, saying he’s maybe six feet and 60 pounds. WHO TO BELIEVE?! Sandy and Lowell? Gorilla robot man? Sammielongdong??
Hi Emily - is this the missing video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp5uKaXjDE8
So glad I came to the comments. That video was wild.