Tucson Girl Recovers Her Own Stolen Car

Shaina DePascal, 23, of Tucson, Arizona, discovered that her car had been stolen last Monday as she prepared to leave her apartment to visit her mother. In an odd turn of events, Ms. DePascal was instrumental in the recovery of her vehicle this afternoon and possibly provided the Tucson Police Department with a substantial lead in the recovery of many more vehicles.

Ms. DePascal was with her father en route to a local business this afternoon when a brown car passed in the opposite direction. Her father jokingly commented, "Hey, Shaina, there goes your car."

When she turned to look, she said, "Dad, that is my car!"

Mr. DePascal made a quick U-turn, and the pursuit was on. As her dad followed the stolen car, staying two to three cars behind, Ms. DePascal was on the phone with the police. Several blocks up the road, two Tucson Police cruisers fell into traffic behind the DePascal vehicle. Eventually, the police instructed DePascal to turn on a cross street. At that point, they pulled the driver of Ms. DePascal's car to the side of the road.

The driver of the stolen vehicle, a young woman, said that her boyfriend had stolen the car and had several more at a location that as of this report has yet to be released. The young woman was taken into custody and transported to the city jail to be booked. Her boyfriend had punched the ignition switch and steering column lock out of Ms. DePascal's vehicle in order to drive it. Although she will have to use a screwdriver to start her car until she has the steering column repaired, Ms. DePascal is happy to have her car back. As an additional stroke of good fortune, while waiting for the police to release her vehicle to her, Ms. DePascal received a telephone call informing her that she had just been hired at a local bank. She is counting today as one of the luckiest of her entire life.