Skeleton nabbed at Super Bowl parade is home, but forever marked by foray with Chiefs

They watched the Chiefs wide receiver emerge from a car in the middle of Kansas City’s Crossroads with a fake skeleton in his arms.

Newly-anointed Super Bowl winner Ihmir Smith-Marsette slipped into the offices of Reactor Design, a graphic design agency,

Wednesday and handed over the skeleton, which hadn’t been seen since he disappeared with it during the Super Bowl parade last week.

“Skelly!” the Chiefs fans exclaimed.

The fans, and owners of the skeleton, had been searching high and low for it on social media, even posting a GoFundMe fundraiser.

Now the bag of bones was back. But where it had been all this time remains a mystery.

“I don’t think anybody really knows what happened,” Clifton Alexander, owner of Reactor Design and of Skelly, said with a laugh.

The skeleton was nabbed from a group of parade-goers near 19th Street and Grand Boulevard that included Mallory Mong, a University of Kansas student from Overland Park who joined in the festivities with her dad, Grant Mong, and Alexander, a family friend.

The skeleton caught the eye of Smith-Marsette, who walked over to see it.

The wide receiver promised to bring the skeleton back, then jogged away with the bones raised in the air. It was handed off from player to player and was even spotted riding atop one of the Chiefs double decked buses.

After the festivities concluded, Mallory Mong tagged Smith-Marsette on Twitter and asked: “Where’s my skeleton??”

He tweeted back: “He still somewhere celebrating the parade he’s probably dead from all the partying.”

But exactly one week later, the skeleton was reunited with its owner. Smith-Marsette told Alexander he had circulated a “most wanted” poster with the skeleton’s likeness to track him down.

“Hahahah he enjoyed his time with me but glad to have got him back home safely….who knows maybe I’ll see him again in a year,” Smith-Marsette tweeted after the hand-off.

Alexander said their meet-up was quick, but he was tickled to learn that Smith-Marsette’s family back in New Jersey even heard about the shenanigans and urged him to find the skeleton and return it.

Alexander also made a point to clear the air of any ill-will: “None of us ever saw it as anything negative. It was all fun and games.”

Skelly is back home, but with a nicer view than before. He’s been promoted from the basement to a prominent window view. His shoulder blade now bears Smith-Marsette’s signature, and a Super Bowl baseball cap keeps the sun out of his eyes as he looks out over Grand Avenue.

What about next year’s Super Bowl parade, if Kansas City is fortunate enough to celebrate three in five years?

Alexander said he hopes to level up this year’s antics with a 12-foot-tall skeleton, like the ones sold around Halloween.

But most of all he hopes to continue helping spread joy.

As for Skelly, he recently grew an altruistic bone.

After the skeleton was lost to the crowd, Mallory Mong set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise $100, somewhat in jest, calling it “Missing Chiefs Skeleton.”

Alexander said they are working with Smith-Marsette to determine where to donate the money. All $110 of it.

The Star’s Lisa Gutierrez contributed.