Prayers, Facebook friends and bright orange rims help find stolen car
CBC
A Bedford, N.S., family says prayers, Facebook friends and bright orange rims all played roles in tracking down their car when it was stolen more than a week ago.
Dave Wilson works in Bayers Lake. On Feb. 16, his car — a 2006 Ford 500 — was stolen.
He called the police and his wife, Natalie Frederick-Wilson, posted about it on their family's Facebook page, Nova Scotia's Wandering Wilsons. The tips came in fast.
"Within 10 minutes of me posting it, someone had shared that the manager from the gas station in River John said that car just stole, a couple hours ago, $100 in gas. And he had the screenshot of our car with the person putting gas in it," Natalie told CBC News.
River John is nearly 150 kilometres away from Halifax.
Dave painted the rims of his winter tires in autumn 2021 because he didn't want to have plain black rims.
"I asked our youngest daughter, 'So what colour should I paint my wheels? I was thinking maybe I'd paint them red.' And she said, 'No, paint them orange.'" So, ironically, it was Halloween night and I was painting my wheels orange," Dave recalled.
The decision ended up paying off because the orange wheels are what stood out. Messages came in about the car being spotted in places like Truro, Pictou, Elmsdale, Tatamagouche, Millbrook and Antigonish.
They would pray and then keep checking Facebook for updates, Natalie said.
Said Dave: "It was almost like … Where's Waldo? Where's my car now? I kind of forgot about being mad that it was stolen and I was having fun."
Natalie said the post reached about 300,000 people.
The next day, they received a tip that the car was spotted in Whycocomagh in Cape Breton. They called the RCMP.
About 30 minutes later, they got a call back from an officer who found the car. Natalie said the officer asked for the code to the car and the door opened.
"[The officer] says, 'I gotta go,' but she forgot to hang the phone up. I can hear kind of tussling and then I hear her pressing the code into the car.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: CBC has removed the names and photo from this story. Now that the people are no longer missing, their identity is no longer in the public interest.
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