13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Halloween display turning heads in Owen County

Halloween display turning heads in Owen County

Kris Kirschner/Eyewitness News

Gosport - A Halloween display at an Owen County home is creating some controversy.

All around her mother's home near Gosport, Kennette Hawkins displays her affection for Halloween.

"I'm all about the pumpkins. I like pumpkins," she said. "I had, like, life-size Frankensteins, Draculas, a little graveyard."

Tuesday, it was one unexpected character in her macabre menagerie that made one passerby cringe with horror.

"It just...it made me sick," said JoEllen Rowe.
 
Rowe was headed south on State Road 67 Tuesday morning when she saw something she couldn't believe.

"It looked like a person, a man, in coveralls and blue jeans," she described. "And it definitely had a black face. Black face and, I think, black hands."

For Rowe, it was more than just frightening.

"To me, it was offensive," she said.

"It's just an alien man," Hawkins said in a phone interview.

Hanging from a branch on a tree in full view of the highway is what Hawkins calls an alien.

"You can see the glow of his mask, his eyes are turned sideways right now," Hawkins said.

But from her point of view, Rowe believes it borders on racist.

"I think it was probably hanging from its neck to, I'm thinking lynching. I wouldn't be thinking alien," she said.

Already this year, a so-called illegal alien costume was targeted by immigrant groups as insensitive and is no longer for sale online. Also, a morbid display by a Cincinnati amusement park was dismantled when people protested it was in poor taste.

"I didn't think it was a big deal," said Hawkins.

She got the gray hazmat suit at a yard sale, the gloves from her garage and the face is a space alien mask. Hawkins says it's not meant to offend anyone, but she has no plans of taking it down.

"Unless the cops come tell me to take him down," she said.

"It's her property and I suppose she can do what she wants to," Rowe said. "It makes me sad in my heart."

Hawkins says no one has complained to her personally about the display.