My truck has been down at a shop about 1.5 hours away. Waiting to get worked on. I got a call this morning at 8 a.m. from the shop owner, he said "HEY DID YOU GET YOUR TRUCK". That's when my heart dropped and the phone too. I picked up the phone and he said " The fence is off the hinges and your truck and trailer is gone" I gave the police the VIN #'s and just started to accept my loss. I knew it was gone forever and just gave it all to God to handle. I've had a lot of hits this year. I have spent all of 2013 looking for a Peterbilt 379 with a big Cat and a 35 ton detach. I was almost done restoring it all, but just wanted a few more things done and he was about to start the work. I sent him pics and his sister started a facebook group ALERT! in that county and the facebook ALERT! got spread around down there pretty quick. A nice young lady was on her front porch and scrolling through facebook as she noticed a Peterbilt sitting next to her house. She saw the facebook post and figured out it was a match. She called the number on the post and the shop owner hauled butt over to the address. It was my truck sitting there. We all got there and a sheriff arrived. The lady said the guy has no power and comes and goes at night. She said he's a known loser, druggie thief. Well, we had to wait on the CSI team and a warrant. It took all day. When they got the warrant they found the scumbag inside and cuffed him. It was an unreal day to say the least. At the truck yard where it was stolen from This is what I pulled up too. Couldn't have been more relieved. He covered the stacks and unhooked the batteries. He had a box of Kleenex's in there and some were dropped at the yard. He pulled the ignition switch out and had a jumper with alligator clips. It was pouring rain and soaked my seats. The CSI ladies were very cool and very persistent. We never found the tag. We did find the tag trim inside his pick up in the garage.
The CSI ladies took the buckets and battery box to the lab. They also took the towel inside that they think he wiped his face with to get DNA. It was pouring last night and the trailer had no tail lights or tag. His facebook page says "CDL Truck Driver at self employed" and "Studied Transportation at Alliance Transportation. He was whinning about the cuffs being too tight and the police said the cuffs would stretch don't worry. They were metal. He did get taken out of the police car twice and fell to the ground whining like a pig. He was escorted just feet away from me and I was feeling the blood pressure ready to just want to beat him. All I could think about was how much work I had done to get this truck this way and he was so close to destroying it with no regard what so ever. Here is my thread on Heavy Truck Forums of all the work I've done. http://www.heavytruckforums.com/showthread.php?53-Peterbilt-379-Lowboy-project I am going to get trackers put on my stuff. That was a wake up call
Wow!!!, glad to see you found it and the scumbag got sent to the pokey
Dang dude.I just don't understand how someone could think they were going to get away with that. Glad you got it back, do you have it back home now? Hows the mouth feeling?
Glad you got it back. How did this yahoo think he would get away with something this big? It is one thing to steal a pack of gum but a rig? Yeah nobody will notice that!
That's great news that you got it back quickly with minimal damage Fastdirt. That is odd the guy was actually planning on using the rig . And the Facebook group alert page was quick thinking.
So happy to see a positive outcome here, best of luck moving forward!
Sad thing is he probably will get away with it. Like you said just glad it's back. Now time to get a hidden master switch on everything and some cameras here. I feel great thanks for asking. Tuesday I had my wisdom teeth removed and it was instant relief. I mean instant, I feel great. Can't believe I was so ignorant and scared to have them out early like normal people do.
make sure you get paper work cleared from police that you recovered truck .better get it right know than late one Saturday night after 80+hrs week and a young smart ass DOT barney fife to impound it because he thinks its stolen your lucky most trucks in our area go southwest right pass you headed towards border they like them shiney black large car 379'S south of the border
make sure you get paper work cleared from police that you recovered truck .better get it right know than late one Saturday night after 80+hrs week and a young smart ass DOT barney fife to impound it because he thinks its stolen your lucky most trucks in our area go southwest right pass you headed towards border they like them shiney black large car 379'S south of the border last year the JD dealer had a truck load of brand new skid steers stolen at night off there lot and loaded on neighbors W900L and 50TN lucky the truck had GPS the next morning they caught up with it going thru Alabama caught driver he claimed knew nothing black clothes and gloves in truck he got off . truck driver and shop foreman went to get rig on the way back DOT tried to fine them for being over on rear axles on trailer (crook had bypassed all the scales GPS showed it). a week or two later some of the skidsteers got stolen again this time in a box truck and never recovered .not trying to scare anybody just makes you think
a guy round 20 miles from me went and drove a combine off of a dealer lot and then went and pulled a header off of another dealer lot and a couple wks later called in cuz the yield monitor not workn and the service manager didn't thnk he had a combine like that so they sent tech out to check it out and there it was
Fastdirt, that's a beautiful truck. When I first started reading your post, I thought this was a "call the police if you see it" thread. Very glad that you got it back.
Glad you got it back, thats terrible! I just put gps in my truck and skid steer. Cheap insurance.
It's smart to put a tracking device on your machine or rig, but be sure and ask the chosen tracking company if the device has it's own power source for emergency tracking. Fastdirt noted in post #1 that the thief disconnected the batteries, there's a reason the thief did that, it disables most tracking devices as they get their power from the batteries. If your tracking device is not self powered, you should rig up a small battery, like a motorcycle battery, to power the device separate from the main rig batteries.
Glad to hear you got it back.
That is one nice rig. glad to hear you got it back in a timely manner without it having to much damage. I can not believe he would try to run it hauling stuff.
Glad to hear you got relief from having them out. Theres nothing worse than dealing with pain all day when you're trying to be focused and get things done. So when he hot wired it did he do any damage, or any other damage that you can see?
thank god you got it back
Awesome you got it back and kudos to the Sheriffs department.
So glad she came back to you!!!! Great idea about the aux battery. So many times lowlife dead beat scum get off with just a slap. I think the sheriffs spent more time trying to get a better case. I hate thief's and some day he will get what he deserves, hopefully it will be in prison with a guy named Bubba!!!!
Well, the dash lights don't work and only the hi beams work now. I was trying to mess with it and the guy who owns the shop demanded I stop and said he will fix it all. The doors are a mess from the scraper, but they will get them painted. I didn't like my stickers anyway and wanted them on the battery box. They got the trailer in the shop today to sand and repaint it so that's good news and it sounds like the truck is about to get started on too. It's at the other shop across the street now with several cameras. He said the police came today and said they found some drug scales and residue to pin on him too. They should've brought in the K9, but he had to know we were out there with the sheriff. I had the camera phone out http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKflhphJrEk&feature=share&list=UUwmjLTz3Ih_Uk7akHrTTieA
Good thing that you got your ride back. Too bad for you and me and everyone else that the cockroach is still alive. He'll be out soon and he'll target you or someone else with an even easier target next time. Every thief needs to have a 12 ga. slug embedded deep into his brain. And yes, If I knew I could get away with it without worrying about anymore jail time, there would be one dead beaner and one dead cracker...... The only thing saving these two thieves after ripping me off.....was the law. Go figure...
He really made a mess of the doors, hopefully your mechanic can get the wiring straight. I'd be paranoid as hell now if I were him that someone was going to do this again. Hopefully he gets your paint and wiring done soon so you can get back to making money with it!! This thief really blows my mind thinking that this was OK and he was going to get away with it, not surprised he had drug parafanalia laying around.
At least it sounds like your mechanic is trying to set everything straight with you. Maybe you can claim lost revenue with his insurance company.
kudos to your mechanic for doing everything right. Maybe time to look into a self powered tracking solution
Take the nice young lady out for lunch. Kelly
I gave the lady a couple hundred bucks, but felt that was pennies to the loss I almost suffered. She emailed me tell me they came and got a stolen Harley out of his garage a couple nights ago. The shop said they were going to give her some more reward, but she doesn't want it. She hates a thief too. She had a new four wheeler stolen and knows the feeling too well. She did say that the word is that it's a theft ring and bigger than what we think. I called the sheriff's office to follow up and they never called me back. Haven't heard from them. Pete, I feel you on that. I just wanted five minutes with him.....heck I'd take one minute. They pulled him out of the cop car and he was so out of shape he was falling to the ground and wollering around like a pig on his stomach. They walked him about five feet in front of me to his garage and I felt the blood and started to see red with physical rage. I was thinking about the hurt that I would feel in a day or a week and for years if he got away with it. I thought how much work I spent on that truck with a headlamp till 1 a.m. at night working on that thing with all my profit. That kind of anger can get you in big trouble. We'll see what happens in our justice system.
Lots of theft happening in on the Alabama boarder by I10
It must be a good trade being a lying stealing thief. Turns out this Maxwell Mitchell guy who stole my Peterbilt and parked it in his yard and went inside to go to sleep is not even going to get charged with my Peterbilt and lowboy. He had my license tag ring and his partners get away vehicle parked in his garage just 8 hours later and the Griffin police dept. is not going to charge him with anything. There is no punishment in this country. A dirtbag criminal already has a horrible life so a little time in jail is nothing to them anyway. Disgusting. I only got my truck back because of facebook.
That sucks!!! It seems the only way to get justice with dirtbags these days is to catch them in the act and prosecute them yourself.
Why in the hell are they not going to charge him with stealing your Pete?
The detectives never even called me. I called a couple times and had to leave messages and they finally called me back and told me they couldn't charge him. They said because he wiped his fingerprints off and nobody saw him in the truck that they had no proof. The neighbors heard it come in at 3 a.m., but didn't see him.
Do the detectives think you just parked the truck there and tried to say he stole it???
I feel your pain and understand the frustration. The man was found in possession of your stolen property with a criminal record and they can't charge him because they have no "proof". It's a sad state of affairs, the society we live in.
:gunsMaybe you should park it down the block and take a nap while you wait for some permits to come.