Historian Vows to Solve Mystery of Headless Statue

Hermosa Beach historian Rick Koenig is determined to find a statue's missing head.

Nowadays at the Hermosa Beach pier sits a bronze statue of legendary surfer Tim Kelly. However, it's not an original. It's a replica, which a few years ago replaced the original foam-and-fiberglass sculpture.

The original, kept in storage above the Hermosa Beach Historical Society Museum, is now missing its head, the Daily Breeze reported.

Koenig told the newspaper that he noticed the head was missing about two weeks ago.

"We've had it in storage all these years. I saw the head along with everything else, I'd say a month ago," Koenig told the Breeze. "We just want it back, because the statue is pretty much worthless without it."

Koenig, who is offering an undisclosed reward for the head, thinks this is the work of "juvenile mischief."

"It really screams of being a youngster, a teenager or something," he told the newspaper.