Tag: vehicle theft

By Caleb Hutton

For background, see this post written Thursday.

One victim of a car theft and arson sent in these shots of her son’s Volkswagen Golf, before and after it was stolen.

It was burned by a group of meth users outside a warehouse on Mercer Avenue early Tuesday, July 10, according to the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office.

These photos are courtesy of Heidi Vandivere-Croker, of Custer. The first was taken on Zeb Croker’s prom night in May. The second image was taken this week at Johnson’s Towing.

Zeb Croker, 18, parked and locked the car — “it was definitely locked,” his mom said — about 8:30 p.m. June 26, outside the warehouse. He walked to a bonfire on Locust Beach to hang out with a few friends. When he came back after midnight the car was gone. More than $750 in lacrosse equipment was inside.

From Thursday’s post:

Deputies responded to a report of a suspicious car fire at 5:16 a.m. Tuesday. They found Bradley Allen Ferris Jr., 32, of Sedro-Woolley, was squatting in a warehouse in the 3100 block of Mercer Avenue with a group of meth users, said Whatcom County Undersheriff Jeff Parks.

Inside the warehouse, it appeared someone had used a forklift to lift the Golf and picked out valuable pieces for resale, Parks said. The value of the car was about $3,500; the removed parts were worth about $1,000. Someone had taken the rest of the car and set it aflame outside.

Heidi Vandivere-Croker said the lacrosse gear was either hocked or burned — either way, it wasn’t recovered. Her son, an avid lacrosse player, had paid for most of the equipment himself.

He’d also just put a new transmission in the car.

And they had to pay more than $650 to get the charred remains out of impound.

A few things taken from the car were recovered by deputies: headlights, taillights, a stereo, wheels, etc. But most of those don’t fit in the replacement car Zeb’s driving around now.

“It’s good, but he doesn’t have a car to put them in,” his mom said. “He’s a good kid and just had the misfortune of parking his car in the wrong spot.”

She wanted to put a face to the victim in this case. So here’s a photo of Zeb with his lacrosse team. He’s No. 20.