HELP us Students! Stolen items sold to trucker!

[rachel86]

sorry for the x-posting!

Hey all, my brother and I really need your help:

I am not a trucker, but a student traveling in San Francisco from Michigan with my brother. While here, just this past Monday, the 20th, our car was robbed of all our belongings: clothing, text books, money,typewriter, skateboard, and mostly, our camera equiptment. We are devestated and broke and trying to get home to Michigan.

Today we got an anonymous/restricted phone call from a trucker almost to Illinois saying that an african american man sold him alllllll of our photo equiptment (this consisted of about 6 cameras, film, negatives, camera bags, etc.) for very cheap. He didn't want to get "involved" which is fair, and confidential is fine.

However, before we got anywhere in the conversation, his phone cut out/he hung up...not sure. We really just want our photos back, those are irreplaceable! We don't know where this driver got this stuff or when, but we wanted to get the message out if anyone else was approached by this guy if they could call the cops or let us know where you saw him, even if confidential!!!! We aren't after this trucker, either, we would just like to try to stop the thief/get our photos back!

At the time, the trucker said this african american male was wearing a purple shirt saying THREEONETHREE in yellow letters (one of my brother's shirts!!) and possibly between California and Illinois (looooong distance I know!) The rest of the stuff he took of ours included a world industries skateboard, a green army parka with Vespa/mod patches, an old, portable manual blue typewriter in a blue case/black stripe, a blue Samsonite portable vanity box, an unused air mattress, photo textbooks, philosophy books...so much stuff! A red, white, blue Rossignal bag full of clothing...

Anyways, if anyone has seen him/offered stuff by him/has information/etc. we would greatly appreciate it. We are just two broke students really heartbroken. We were trying to start a new life in San Fran and it just wasn't working for us, and then we lost everything. Any contact info can be anonymous, or just drop stuff at a police station with a note or ANYTHING. Please help get the word out, we are desperate! Thank you!!!!! Much love and blessings!


Rachel and Austin Hermann



edit note............ Per site rules it is against Trucker's Report policy to allow phone numbers and email address for any one in public forums, for any reason. Until you get enough posts to be able to PM please run all correspondence thru any one of the moderators. Thank you and good luck with finding your belongings.

[Tip]

The stuff was stolen from a car in San Fran and sold somewhere near Illinois. Which state, exactly, we don't know. Your case is no surprise. I once had a jacket stolen in Salt Lake City, and bad checks began appearing one day later in Denver. Thieves like to travel around, it seems.

When the driver called you up, did he first ask you if you'd had these things stolen? How exactly DID that conversation begin, in exact words? It's odd he'd be calling you in the first place, but maybe he assumed you were close by the truckcorral, rest area, wherever, when he bought this on the cheap.

If you told him "Yes, that is MY stuff" first thing, he should have called the local cops right there and turned it in. He had nothing to be afraid of, as 99.9999% chance he was nowhere near your car when those things were stolen (he'd be able to use his logbook for proof, plus certain receipts and other things), so the cops would have no way to pin the theft on him. Maybe he was afraid of being busted for possession of stolen goods.

Something doesn't quite add up here, though. Maybe it's the "almost to Illinois" thing. He could have been in Indiana travelling west. He could have been in Walcott going east. Maybe he was in Green Bay going south. Did he say exactly?

1. If the guy who called you was actually the one who stole your things, why would he call you? I think his stealing them is highly unlikely. I believe he was trying to help you out. Truck drivers are that way. I don't think this guy went wandering around San Francisco and broke into your car somewhere on a city street far away from a truck stop, and grabbed that load for himself in plain view.

2. Why doesn't this guy call you back again and see if he can get your stuff back to you? As I said, he has nothing to be afraid of, as he has plenty of ways to prove he wasn't in your area when the theft happened. Sometimes it pays to have caller ID. You could call HIM back if you had it.

Too bad you didn't have a cell phone stolen among it all. Those can be tracked.

Strange, indeed, assuming this tale is true. Sounds like whoever did it needed a small U-Haul to actually make off with it. Watch eBay the next few weeks if you don't get any more calls. If I had just bought six cameras on the cheap, I'd want to get rid of a couple of them. No one really needs six.