He literally had “squirrels in the attic.”
A UK widow proved you never fully know your soulmate after discovering her late husband’s secret stash of antique taxidermied critters, which he’d reportedly been hoarding for years under her nose.
“I’m amazed Kevin managed to squirrel them away without me knowing,” Julie Gittoes, 62, told SWNS of the Norman Bates-evoking find, which auctioneers have described as “one of the most unusual private collections.”
The Worcester native had always known her late paramour, named Kevin, was interested in taxidermy — and had a few pieces around — however, she “never realized the extent” of his obsession until after he died in August of cancer at 69. The widow had hired workmen board up her attic, whereupon they discovered dozens of crates of encased animals.
“I was never allowed into the loft but, after I lost Kevin, I needed some work done in the attic,” Gittoes explained. “The workman said to me, ‘Did you know there are a lot of boxes up there?’ I found 12 pieces of taxidermy I had no idea about.”
And that was just the tip of the iceberg. An inspection of the homeowner’s garage — another place that Kevin kept largely to himself — yielded another 150 pieces, which were “stacked one behind another on deep shelves,” the stunned widow described.
Gittoes mused, “I knew he had some more taxidermy in there but I never realized the extent of it.
In total, she found a treasure trove of taxidermied beasts, including a 1920s lion’s head, conger eel, otter, long-eared owl, badger, fox, zebra, a rare species of antelope and other stuffed critters straight of a Natural History Museum.
Meanwhile, one of the stuffed animal enthusiast’s centerpieces entailed a puppy dog, a pair of red squirrels and a green woodpecker dating back to the 1860s.
Kevin, who worked as an engineer, had surreptitiously amassed the stash over the course of 30 years while married to Gittoes. His pastime picked up speed after he retired and got a part-time gig at an auction house — the perfect source for stuffed animals.
It’s unclear why Kevin kept his pet project under wraps, although Gittoes suspects that her deceased soulmate felt embarrassed about his hidden hobby.