My Jeep goes A.W.O.L.
Around the beginning of March, I came to my shop and saw that my Jeep was missing. I have a 1991 Jeep Wrangler "Islander" that I bought many years from one of my former Argo dealers in Oregon. Someone stole it! I called the Police Department and filed a report. The officer told me that the recovery rate was around 50%. I thought the maybe it was kids taking a joy-ride and that they might find it abandoned in an orchard somewhere. After a couple of weeks go by, I assumed it had probably been stripped for parts, and I would never see it again.
About 5 weeks later, I was going to my shop to work on my website orders, when I decided not to stop and to go out toward Colusa and see the work going on in preparation for planting the spring rice crop. I looked down at my gas gauge and thought I would also go the the casino in Colusa and get gas. The casinos usually have gas up to a dollar less per gallon. In other works, I was playing hooky from what I was supposed to be doing. I arrived at the casino and filled up my 2014 Ford "Raptor" with about 30 gallons of gas. Instead of getting right back on the highway, I went around the back side of the casino through the parking lots. As I rounded the corner into the main casino parking lot, I saw my Jeep sitting all alone in the middle of the lot. I drove by and saw a female was sitting in the passenger seat. I went into an adjacent parking lot to keep eyes on the Jeep and call the Sheriff. While I was talking to the Sheriff dispatcher, three more people walked out to the Jeep and were walking around it like they were buying or selling it. Soon they all went back into the casino and the Sheriff car arrived and drove by the Jeep and did not stop. The Sheriff pulled over into a parking lot in the adjacent Tribal Health Facility. I went over and spoke to the Sheriff Deputy. She told me that the license number on the car was not the license number that I had reported stolen. It was, however from a Jeep. After I convinced the Deputy that the the plates were probably stolen and that the car was mine, they told me to go and wait in the parking lot for them to act. I went back to my vantage point and waited. After a while, the four people returned and a male dressed in black and a hoody, got into the driver's seat. At that time, three Sheriff cars descended on the car and removed the occupants in handcuffs.
After several minutes, the put the driver in a Sheriff's car and released the other 3 people. Evidently the only one that can be arrested was the driver. After a while the Sheriff Deputy called me over the the car. The car was piled from floor to ceiling with everything this man owned. The Deputy told me that they had searched the car for guns, knives, and contraband and had removed some drug parafernalia. I was informed that everything in the car was mine and it was up to me to dispose of it as I saw fit. They also instructed me to "double glove" before cleaning the junk out of the car in case there were more needles.
The thief had disabled the car by removing the coil wire before he left it in the lot. I guess thieves don't trust other thieves. I had intended to use my car trailer to recover the car once it was released. However, it would not start and I did not catch the coil wire issue until after I had ordered a tow truck to take it home. The Sheriff Deputy released the car to me and I helped the tow-truck driver hook it up and followed him to my shop where he dropped the vehicle in my lot.
It was a miracle that i was in the right place at the right time to find it. I now had it back. The next post will be about the process of cleaning it out and what I found.\\
I have now hidden an Apple Air Tag in all of my vehicles. If this ever happens again, I will know where to look for it. Cliick on the image to purchase Air Tags.
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