Buick Rainier Stolen from Home in Rural Ohio, Recovered 1 Hour Later in Cleveland with Purse Inside
- May 15, 2012
- recovery stories
The owners of a 2005 Buick Rainier had parked the vehicle at their residence and were working in their barn. The vehicle had been left unlocked and contained numerous personal items, including a purse. Upon returning to their home, they discovered that the vehicle and all of the possessions inside were missing. Once inside the house, they discovered that the Buick keys had been removed from the kitchen counter. The owners live in a very rural area outside of Wellington, Ohio, and like many people in such rural areas, they had left their home unlocked.
The owners contacted the Lorain County Sheriff’s Office and filed a theft report. After verifying the theft, deputies entered the Buick’s information into both the Ohio LEADS and national NCIC stolen vehicle databases. This routine police action automatically activated the LoJack transponder concealed in the stolen Buick. Neither the owner nor law enforcement agents had to do anything else to activate the LoJack Vehicle Recovery Network, as LoJack’s interface with the police is both seamless and instantaneous.
Minutes later, several law enforcement agencies in the Cleveland area received the Buick’s silent LoJack signal on their tracking computers. Following the directional cues provided by the computers, troopers with the Ohio State Highway Patrol were able to locate the stolen Buick, parked and unattended in a remote residential area of Cleveland, more than 40 miles from the scene of the crime. The suspect had locked the vehicle and it appeared that it had been left to “cool off”. The Buick was impounded and later released to the owner. The purse and its contents were still inside the vehicle, and there was no damage to the Buick.
The owner had purchased the Buick two years ago in New Jersey and was happy to discover that the original owner had it equipped the vehicle with a LoJack Vehicle Recovery System when they had purchased it from Salerno Pontiac GMC in September 2005. The Lorain County Sheriff’s Office is handling this ongoing investigation.