Cancer patient’s “lifeline” stolen car found, minus a few things

3 weeks ago, we brought you the report of a car theft that hit a family dealing with cancer, among other difficulties. Many WSB’ers offered help; the outpouring continued as a couple of citywide media outlets picked up the story. But the car remained missing – till this weekend. Just got this followup note from Tina, the patient’s wife, who says it turned up about half a mile (blue marker) from where it was stolen at 44th/Hinds (red marker):

View Stolen car found in a larger map

On Friday May 28 at 4 pm, while driving down 45th Ave SW at SW Dakota Ave, I spotted my car that was stolen sometime on May 8 or early morning on the 9th. It had been ransacked and a few things stolen out of it, but it had not been in an accident looked to be in good shape. One of the windows had been left open; the seat and carpet got wet and the car smells a bit musty. After 2 days of trying to dry it out it looks like I am going to have to replace the seat and carpeting in the car. I am glad to have it back home where it belongs. My three furry babies will now be able to go to the doggie park again and they are very happy about that.

Missing items
New and improved Tow Ready Modulite Module which they cut out and destroyed the wiring from the front to the rear of the car, this is used for our utility trailer lights (was not visible)
Power Supply for my laptop (was not visible)
Prescription Sunglasses
Small air compressor (was not visible)
2 new tarps
Large First Aid kit for both humans and dogs
Coins (not visible)
12 tie downs
Couple of doggie toys
Plastic storage container with miscellaneous items

Thank you for the story you did earlier this month – there were a lot of kind neighbors who wrote to offer help; I even had one offer to give me their car.

Kate K May 30, 2010 (6:41 pm)

So glad you got your car back – that’s great news!

sophista-tiki May 31, 2010 (8:15 am)

YAY! You found your own car, thats awesome, So when you found it did you just take your keys and drive it home? or did yoy call the police ? just curious about the process of getting back a stolen car.

Tina May 31, 2010 (11:28 am)

When I found the car I called my husband first then called the police and waited for them to come. If I had just driven the car home and was pulled over it would have been at gun point. It was a busy Friday night so I waited almost 5 hours for them to show. The officer that showed felt really bad that it had taken that long, he was a very nice guy he did his report then came to the house and took me back to the car to get it. If they had told me that they could take the report over the phone since there was no body damage it would have been home sooner. But I was also kind of scared to approach the car so I wanted an officer to come to the scene.
I am so very happy to have my Subbie back!!

brandon May 31, 2010 (1:34 pm)

So this is where watching what goes on in your neighborhood can save people some grief. Why didn’t anyone notice the car ditched in their neighborhood and report it? And to the thieves, what a great score!! Do you feel proud?

Sorry, comment time is over.