<VV> Stolen Corvair recovered (vey long)

Sun May 22 15:20:04 EDT 2005

So you're not allowed to follow your own stolen Corvair???  Are the police 
so insecure that they are afraid of anyone else doing their job?
RonH

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Spence Shepard" <sshepard3 at earthlink.net>
To: "VirtualVairs AA" <VirtualVairs at corvair.org>
Cc: <sshepard3 at hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 8:14 PM
Subject: <VV> Stolen Corvair recovered (vey long)

>I got it back! It's not all good news and it has been a struggle, but it is 
>back home.
>
> The story goes as follows:
>
> I usually park it inside my garage (repair shop) overnight, but there 
> wasn't room last Saturday (because of customer cars) so I left it out. It 
> wasn't the first time and I hid it between some regular cars.  When I went 
> to put in inside Monday night I noticed it was gone and reported it to the 
> local (Matthews) police. They told me it would be a little while becaue 
> they were working a bank robbery and it was shift change. An officer came 
> in about 20 minutes to take the report.
>
> I didn't hear anything on Tuesday. I didn't expect to.
>
> Late Wednesday afternoon a guy in the adjacent shop (Goodyear) received a 
> call from someone who claimed to know where the car was and who had it. He 
> didn't want to identify himself but he gave the name of the person he said 
> had the car and said it was parked behind his mobile home on Indian 
> Trail-Waxhaw Road. That road is about 13 miles long and is another County. 
> The caller gave the number of the county Sheriff's office and gave 
> instructions to ask for a "detective". The caller thought that the car 
> came from the Goodyear's parking lot.
>
> I tried to research the information on the internet and couldn't find 
> anyone with the name we were given anywhere near the road where the car 
> was supposed to be.
>
> I called the number in the adjacent (Union) county and told the story. I 
> was told I had to call the town (Matthews)where the report had been made. 
> I called Matthews police and they told me that the guy who took the report 
> was off that night and that I should call Union County. I called Union 
> couinty again and they didn't seem to want to do much. That night I drove 
> up and down the road and looked at all the mobile homes and tried to look 
> behind them without finding anything that looked like my car. After I got 
> home I got a call from an officer in the Union county police who told me 
> he once had a Corvair and had sent out 2 officers to look behind all the 
> mobile homes on the road. They didn't find anything.
>
> On Thursday morning I decided to call the Matthews police and see if there 
> was any progress. The receptionist told me that a Detective had been 
> assigned to my case and she would have her call me. In the mean time an 
> employee of mine  with a wife in a government job in another county had 
> her do some research on the guy we were looking for. She wasn't supposed 
> to be doing it and I can't say much about it ( but people who would steal 
> cars often have criminal records and are often on the public dole). She 
> came up with a person who lived in the right area with the right last name 
> but the wrong first name. I went to the address and saw that it was a 
> house in an area with several mobile homes and lots of old cars and 
> several buildings where cars could be hidden. I drove by several times but 
> couldn't see my car. That afternoon at about 3:30 I decided to call the 
> Matthews police again and asked for "my" detective. She was there and 
> after I told her the case number she looked it up on her computer and said 
> it was indeed hers, but she hadn't looked at the computer to see it so she 
> hadn't done anything. I told her the whole story. She called me back about 
> 15 minutes later and asked the name of the guy at Goodyear so she could 
> come interview him.
>
> That night I got a call at about 9:30 form a friend who hangs around my 
> shop and gets me to work on his old cars (he's a Ford guy and owns the 
> American Station Wagon Association). He was calling on his cell pnone and 
> was following my car going towards Charlotte from Matthews. He had spotted 
> the car driving through the town of Matthews which is about 3 miles from 
> where it was stolen. He recognized the car because of the wheels, roll bar 
> and some blue paint, but said that it had been painted black! I called the 
> Matthews police and told them about it. They told me I would have to talk 
> to the Charlotte police and patched me through to them on the 911 line. I 
> told the Charlotte police what was going on and they told me to stop the 
> guy from following the car because he wasn't authorized to do that. I 
> called him back and he told me that he had just flagged down a Charlotte 
> police car which was now pursuing my car. I called 911 back to tell them 
> and they told me that the officer couldn't follow the car because it 
> hadn't been involved in a felony (Charlotte has a no pursuit policy). My 
> friend lost sight of my car and never saw the cop again.
>
> Today the detective came to my shop and interviewed my friend who had 
> followed the car. He gave her a good description of the perp and I told 
> her where I suspected the car was. She told me she hadn't been able to 
> find anyone on that road with the right last name through any of her 
> sources. I was a little vague about where I got my information. She then 
> interviewed the guy at Goodyear and told me she thought she would get my 
> car back pretty quickly.
>
> About an hour later she called me to tell me she had my car. She told me 
> she drove to the address I gave her and the perp drove the car onto the 
> road in front of her. She pulled him over and made the arrest. She told me 
> she would call back to let me know where to get the car. I turns out that 
> the car was at 1907 and the address I had given her was 1902, obviously a 
> relative.
>
> She called back and told me that they had to tow the car to a shop near me 
> and that I had to go to the police station and sign a form before I could 
> pick it up. I would also have to pay for the tow. The form I had to sign 
> said everthing on the car was in "bad" condition and that I accepted that 
> fact. I had to sign it before I even saw the car. I'm sure it was to 
> absolve them of any liability.
>
> I went to get the car and had to pay $100 for the tow (about 6 miles) 
> before I could see the car. The guy had painted it with a spray bomb until 
> the can (or 2) ran out. He got the left side covered pretty well but ran 
> out of paint before he got to the back of the car on the right side. He 
> put a few slashes of paint on the hood and deck lid for good measure. I'm 
> sure his thought (if he was capable of thinking) was to camaflage the car. 
> The finishing touch was his hand lettered cardboard "plate" which said the 
> plate was lost. He wrote a fake number on it.
>
> He had an old GM key that worked my ignition switch, I'm not sure where he 
> got it-not from me. He didn't do any other damage I could see except it 
> looked like he had been driving it in some dirt and grass. The engine it 
> now running on 5 cylinders and is making noise in the valve train. I hope 
> it is just a pushrod or rocker arm problem. It doesn't look like the fan 
> belt came off.
>
> I was going to have to repaint in anyway because the paint was getting 
> faded. I'm going to have to move up the schedule a little. I was also 
> going to build a good engine for, probably with EFI. I had already started 
> that project. Now I'm also going to have to buy a new license plate for 
> it.
>
> I'm really glad it wasn't a real car thief or I might never had seen it 
> again. I don't think I'm supposed to divulge the name of then perp because 
> he hasn't been proven guilty (and is probably walking the streets or in 
> another stolen car now) but I wouldn't buy a car from anyone named David 
> Anthony Haire.
>
> Spence Shepard
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