O.K., so, you’re at this party off of Barracks Road. You just got a job as a waitress, and this is one of those restaurant parties. Everyone is happy, a pipe is probably going around and there is beer and wine everywhere. At some point you drop your purse and keys on a table and wander around. Hours later, when you come back, your eyelids just a tad heavier, the keys are not there. You go outside to check on your car, a 2007 Hyundai your mom bought you last Christmas, but—like your keys—it is gone. What the…?
Something like this actually happened to Free Union resident Shannon Bird. She pieced it together that a drunk must have grabbed her keys and stolen her car, but while she was trying to decide just who, the police pulled him over on the other side of town. By the time Bird called in a stolen vehicle report, the absconder was imprisoned and her vehicle towed away.
A month and a half later, Bird was still without a car when her insurance company called. Her car had been found. All along it was at Charlottesville Wrecker Service and they asked for $500 for its return. In the meantime, Bird had lost her job at the restaurant and her child’s spot in preschool, so when she found out that the car had been in a nearby tow yard this whole time, she was pissed. After a conversation yelling at the county and city police—and being yelled at in return—she called C-VILLE.
But luckily for Bird, the city—namely one Captain Bryant Bibb—agreed to pay the tow yard fines, and she now has her car back, albeit with some sort of dent.
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
