It's Very, Very Strange...

to wake up to the morning news on your radio and to realize that the "stupid criminal" story they are reporting is about your car...(Later a cousin sent me this link.)

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

(I'm going to copy the article text to the bottom of this post because I figure some day the video clip won't work anymore.)

RM's car was stolen out of our driveway about 11:25pm on Monday. He was working in the garage and heard it being driven away. He called me to make sure I wasn't in the car (I was in our room working on the computer) and then called 911. The Sheriff's deputy told us that Honda Civics usually disappear into a chop shop within hours, but that since we reported it so quickly, we might get lucky. We made a few phone calls and said a few prayers.

About 1:30am we got a call that the police had our car. After RM got there, he found out that the three guys who stole our car had been caught. They guy who tried running got tackled face down in the snow! We got most everything back (except a clip board full of yet to be turned in homework, ug!) and a few odds and ends. They caught them so fast they didn't have time to do much or take it to the chop shop. The steering column is broken up and the little triangle window in the backseat is busted, but all in all not too bad. The scary thing though is that one of them had part of our garage door opener on him when he was caught. Don't know where the rest is, so our garage door is unplugged until we can replace it with a new code.

Really, this has turned out to be a lot less awful than it could have been. We have been very blessed! We know that the guy who took the car thought he had hours before the car was reported missing. After all, the house was all dark. If RM hadn't been in the garage building stuff for homework, we probably wouldn't have known until morning. Earlier that night RM brought more things into the house from his car than he normally does...including the binder that has all his Master's research notes in it and some expensive parts for this robot. It is being inconvenient, but not too much worse. We're just thrilled the guys that took it are in jail.

"December 8th, 2009 @ 7:31am

WEST VALLEY CITY -- Overnight snowfall helped police track down a man driving a stolen car.

A West Valley City police officer noticed a stolen car on 4000 West near 4100 South around 1 a.m. When he tried to pull over the car, the driver took off.

Officers called in police dogs and followed fresh footprints in the snow to find the suspect around the corner.

Sgt. M.T. Johnson with the West Valley City Police Department said, "I think it's pretty cut and dried. Stolen car and the bad guy got caught."

Eddie Garza was booked into jail for driving a stolen car, fleeing and possession of a burglary instrument."