South MS children save sketchy suspects from jail at Christmas: ‘That’s our elves!’
The suspects wore red. And they were short. Really short.
Gulfport Police officer Matthew Mashburn had them buckled into the backseat of his patrol car.
The uniformed officer knocked on the door of the Titus home in Gulfport’s Bayou View subdivision in the early evening on Sunday. The whole family answered. Mashburn addressed the children: Sawyer, 7, Nellie, 5, and Shep, 4. Even their dog Peppa had on a matching reindeer costume.
“Got a call saying two suspects tried to break into a home,” he told them, asking if they could identify the rogues. “If not,” Mashburn said, “I’m going to have to take them to jail.”
The children, in their matching flannel jammies with reindeer hoods, dutifully followed him to the patrol car. Mashburn shined his flashlight directly on the suspects, each about 10 inches in height.
The kids knew the scoundrels all right.
“That’s our elves,” Nellie piped up, then started giggling.
“That is crazy,” her Dad Dillon Titus said. “What is wrong with these elves?”
Elf on the Shelf time arrives
And that’s how Elf on the Shelf season started in the Titus household, one of millions of families participating in the tradition born in 2005, when a mother and daughter published a book about their personal Christmas memories of a toy elf in the house.
Officer Mashburn wanted to know the names of the elves in his patrol car.
“So, the girl is Snowflake and the other one is Elfie,” Nellie said.
The officer gave the kids their previous address and said the elves were trying to break into the house there when they got caught. Teri Titus explained the elves must not have realized the family had recently moved.
She’s not one of those moms who dreads the Elf on the Shelf routine — the one where you move the elf every night and come up with creative stories on the daily, until Christmas Eve, about what the elf has been up to.
The elves are called Scout Elves because they serve as Santa’s eyes and ears, making sure all the kids are being good for goodness sake, not pouting and crying. Scout elves wing it back to the North Pole nightly to report to Santa.
Teri Titus saw a video some years back about a Scout Elf who ran afoul of the law by trying to enter the wrong home after his family moved. She loved it.
“I couldn’t wait to use that idea,” she said. “This was the first time we moved and it was before Christmas.”
“I love that kind of stuff,” she said. “I go on Pinterest, too, and there’s billions of ideas on there also.”
Gulfport police officer happy to help
She reached out on Facebook for a police officer who might be willing to go along. In the comments, someone mentioned Matthew Mashburn, whom she knows but hadn’t thought about. She got in touch.
He got the go-ahead from his supervisor and was happy to help. He was off that day, but donned his uniform, went over the script with Dillon Titus and then showed up at the family’s door.
After the kids sprung the elves from custody, Mashburn said: “I let them sit in the car, hit the sirens and play with the lights. They loved it.
“Whenever it comes to kids, I try to do anything I can.”
The Titus children haven’t stopped talking about Snowflake and Elfie’s brush with the law. They told all their friends, too. Snowflake is now going to sit one day inside a snowball enclosure in Nellie’s class at school and watch all the children. (Scout Elves lose their magic if children touch them; only parents can do that.)
All the children at Bayou Elementary will get a chance to meet Snowflake. And there will be treats.
The adventures of the elves are already livening up the family’s Christmas season.
“They get so excited when the elves come back,” Teri Titus said. She sounded pretty excited, too.
This story was originally published December 4, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
