— Pamela Roth
On the morning of Oct. 17, Tammy Kivell woke up at 4:30 a.m. to get ready for her trip to an assembly near Nanaimo.
She packed a lunch, gathered her dog’s belongings, then texted her friend to save her a seat. But when Kivell walked out of her Esquimalt home her car wasn’t there.
“I was scratching my head and thinking, did I leave my keys with a friend? I wasn’t drinking last night. Did I park in the wrong stall?” said Kivell, who looked in other stalls, but found no trace of her car.
“Then I knew it was gone.”
Kivell contacted the police, who advised her to first call local tow truck companies. She also walked extensively around her neighbourhood to see if the car had been been ditched on another street, but had no luck.
Kivell had saved for a couple years to purchase her 2005 silver Toyota Echo. It was the first new car she had ever owned. After speaking with police, the 54-year-old felt optimistic her car would be found soon, but as the days go by that optimism is beginning to fade.
“I just thought who would want an old car?” said Kivell. “It’s an invasion, like I had no security.”
Victoria police Const. Franco Bruschetta, community resource officer for Esquimalt, said thefts of autos in the community are rare, but there have been spikes in thefts from autos.
Having a club on your steering wheel could help deter thieves, he added, along with not having anything visible inside your vehicle.
“They’ll break your window just to get in and get lose change so keep all that hidden away or not even in the car period,” Bruschetta said.
In the mean time, all Kivell can do is wait to see if she’ll have her car returned, hopefully in one piece.
“Someone’s got a beautiful car out there, wherever it is,” she said.
