Little girl reunited with stolen bunny

Lost and now found. “Keegan” a bunny, was stolen from the Southern New Mexico State Fair earlier this week. But little did the thief know the impact he’d have.

“She was heartbroken,” said mother, Megan Francis. “She would ask me regularly why somebody would do this and I didn’t want to explain to my 8-year-old child that there are cruel people in the world that would do this to a child.”

Keegan, a brown-speckled Holland Lop rabbit is one of Francis Farm’s pure-bred money makers.

“She’s picked out quite a few rabbits to breed,” Francis said. “To lose Keegan was a blow to her line.”

The person in charge of this part-business, part-hobby stands just shy of four-feet and is only 8-years-old.

Madison Francis is her momma’s miracle baby.

“She was never suppose to be anything other than a vegetable,” Francis said.

Born with swelling in her brain, Madison has trouble with her motor skills, walking and is considered legally blind, although she can read, ride horses, and navigate through thousands of acres on her family farm. But it’s rabbits that make her feel like everyone else.

“Because you don’t have to be physically able to do anything to show a rabbit,” Francis said. “She can haul him over and have somebody push her in her chair and set them on the table and be like every other child that’s standing around that table.”

Losing Keegan meant losing her place and identity in a world of people very different from herself. But with the help of the media, the Las Cruces Sun News even putting Keegan’s kidnapping on its front page, Keegan was able to be found. He was found on the steps of an NMSU sorority house.

“For us this has just been one blessing after another and we are so thankful for all these people,” Francis said. “It’s amazing that everyone took two minutes out of their day to make a child’s day.”