Mysterious Dead Garden Gnomes In Sims 3 Gardens

A Sims 3 Garden Gnome Strikes A Pose

 If one has a Sims 3 garden, one will soon become accustomed to the presence of magical gnomes, statues that move about the garden assuming various positions. The number of gnomes seeems to be somewhat proportional to the number of plants planted in the garden, so a family full of green thumbed sims is likely to attract a whole lot of Mysterious Mr. Gnomes.

What's truly weird however, is that sometimes a gold gnome statue will appear in the garden with the text 'Here Lies Mysterious Mr Gnome.' Oftentimes these don't correspond to any magical gnomes ever seen in a sim garden.

Here's a line up of dead garden gnomes that spontaneously appeared scattered throughout my sims garden.

Where do all the dead gnomes come from?