Student discusses ups and downs of stolen vehicle

from+carfax

from carfax

Emily Shephard, Editor-in-Chief

When you think new year new me, you really don’t think new year, new me and new car; however, for me, this year has started out with that reality. On the fateful day of December 27 I woke up that morning to look out my window and see my car was gone. For context, my car was a horrible choice out of all the cars on my street to take. It was cherry red with stickers all over the back and it also had well over 200,000 miles on it. Really a bad decision on the thief’s part.
About a week after the event, I had given up hope at this point if I’m being honest. I then got a call from the Tulsa police department stating that they had found my car and the suspect was currently in custody. He was charged with a multitude of charges, not only possessing a stolen vehicle–enough charges to set his bond at $6,100. The man ripped out my rearview mirror, knocked in my passenger window, cracked my windshield, left alcohol, weed and vapes inside the car and dented my fender. To fix my vehicle alone it would cost $10-11,000. That was well over the actual cost of the car, but thankfully my grandma had a car I could drive. The only downside is that it is a truck, and I definitely can’t park this truck either.
My backpack, driver’s license, purses, cards, chrome book, letterman, heels and all of my tennis stuff was in my car. We managed to find some of it in the Sonic dumpster near Barnett road in Wichita Falls; however, it was just my chrome book and car registration forms that we managed to retrieve.
The entire thing was just really bad timing for the entire family. We lost my grandpa the day before my car was stolen. The car was in my grandma’s name and she had to deal with the car insurance on top of funeral arrangements.
I did have my spare key in the car so I made it 10 times easier than it should have been for the guy, but I have learned a lot of things in light of this event. All in all don’t leave your keys in your car, don’t keep important stuff in it and do not think it won’t happen to you because even though it seems insane, something can happen to you. It can and always at the worst possible time.