0
As student pranks go, this was the King Kong of capers. Posing with a fearsome gorilla after stealing the animal from a museum, these three undergraduates had just staged a daring heist that would remain a mystery for more than half a century. Alfred the stuffed ape's disappearance from a glass case in Bristol Museum sparked a major police investigation in 1956.
Ron Morgan and his two accomplices had decided to kidnap the giant silverback during the city's university rag week. The trio crept into the museum in the middle of the night and brought him back to their digs for three days, before returning him, unharmed, to the authorities.
Alfred was the longest living gorilla in captivity anywhere in the world when he died at Bristol Zoo in 1948. These photographs were developed by Mr Morgan, who swore his friends and family to secrecy because he feared he might be prosecuted after police scoured the university campus and interviewed leaders of the student union over the missing ape.
But now that the English graduate and former estate agent has died aged 79, the details of the audacious kidnap have finally been revealed. Mr Morgan, of Clevedon, Somerset, kept a scrapbook with pictures of the stolen gorilla in various costumes.
Yesterday, one of his accomplices, Fred Hooper, broke his silence after 54 years and recalled how the three friends spirited Alfred away under cover of darkness.
Mr Hooper, 77, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, said: 'It was initially my idea. I thought it would be a great rag week jape. We took Alfred because he was such a big Bristol personality and he was close by. 'It took a bit of planning. We knew the porter and so we were able to get a key cut to a door that linked the museum to the university. Then we hid in the belfry until about 1am when everything was closed.
Source
