COVINGTON, Ky. — It’s bad enough finding your car stolen once.
But one Covington woman found her car, stolen back in July and recovered just a week ago, missing again.
“Who would do this to me?” asked Phyllis Smith. “I feel like I’m being terrorized.”
After recovering her 1985 Cadillac DeVille at a church in Florence, about 15 minutes from her Covington home, a friend had helped her fix it back up, she said. She even installed an anti-theft device on the steering wheel, in an attempt to prevent future theft.
Phyllis Smith's Cadillac DeVille, now stolen a second time in two months.
Now, it’s gone again.
“I was in shock,” Smith told WCPO. “I started screaming and crying and freaking out.”
As stressful as having one’s car stolen can be, it was even more so for Smith back in July. Smith’s son, Gabriel, is autistic. Beyond needing her vehicle to get her son to and from doctor’s appointments and other errands, Smith said when Gabriel’s riding in the car with her, a world that can seem closed off finally opens up.
“We listen to music and go up and down the streets,” she said. “He gets a kick out of it.”
This second theft has hit Gabriel even harder, she said.
“He’s been very stressed out, very anxious,” Smith said. “[He looks] out the window, wondering why the car is not there, and why we’re not going places.”
“I want this person to know they are turning my life upside down. I have no transportation for my kid. I’m a nervous wreck,” she said.
Smith said she believes the same person is responsible for both thefts.
But the hardest part, she said, is explaining the situation to her son.
“I try to explain to him that someone took the car and we don’t have transportation right now and mommy’s doing what she can to get us back on our feet,” she said.
But Covington Police still offer a glimmer of hope: officers say more than half of stolen cars are eventually recovered.
