A short, two-day trip home to Kingsville to celebrate the Mother’s Day long weekend didn’t turn out as planned for Cory Thuy.
On Monday morning, Cory had his pickup truck packed and was ready to start off on the 11-hour journey back to North Carolina with his wife. He started the ignition and knew right away that he had been the victim of theft.
According to Cory, the truck sounded like a hot rod. When he looked under the 2011 Dodge Ram 1500, he could see that three feet of the exhaust system, including the catalytic converter, had been removed – likely cut off with a sawzall.
The truck had been parked on Queen Street under a street lamp adjacent to Lakeside Park.
Stationed at the very first spot on the road and furthest away from Lakeside Pavilion, he never thought for a minute that something like this could happen in such a quiet, crime-free area and so close to the park.
Cory suspects that the thief must have approached from the park and crawled under the truck on the passenger side since no residential home cameras on the street were able to detect anything.
“When I first contacted the OPP they were shocked with the location and mentioned that they had a bunch of these thefts in the Kingsville area a year and a half ago or so, but haven’t had a call in awhile about this type of theft,” Cory said.
“I was told to give them all the pictures and any video I had. They did not comment on it being tracked down, but I wasn’t hopeful.”
Later that day, Cory heard back from the same officer who had taken the initial report. Constable Brad Scott mentioned that while on patrol he heard a radio call to be on the lookout for a reported suspicious vehicle from a completely unrelated incident. Not a few minutes later, that vehicle drove past Constable Scott and he pulled it over.
Upon learning the driver had warrants out for her arrest, he then proceeded to arrest her and search her car. It was then that he found three catalytic converters, sawzalls and broken blades, and a number of tools and other items.
With all three catalytic converters in hand, Constable Scott visited the garage where Cory’s truck was awaiting repair.
While catalytic converters do not bear a VIN making it hard to prove ownership, one was a perfect match. The cuts lined up exactly and it was confirmed that it was indeed taken from Cory’s truck. Unfortunately, it was no longer useful since the thief had chopped off the rest of the exhaust pipe, likely making it small enough to easily transfer to a buyer.
Ultimately the repair work cost Cory $2,900 using aftermarket parts. That helped to soften the blow of the original quote of $5,000 from Chrysler. This hefty price tag was for the catalytic converter alone and did not include the O2 sensors, fabrication of the missing section of pipe, and labour.
In the end, Cory and his wife, both originally from Kingsville, spent eight days in town rather than two and Cory missed four days of work back in North Carolina.
On a positive note, Cory said the work by the OPP was professional and he would like to thank Constable Scott for his great work on this case.
Photos provided by Cory Thuy
Great job Constable Scott!!!
Ghee kingsville is always noisy with ram trucks.
I hope his vehicle insurance covered the cost of this. I also expect the thief would be incarcerated for rehabilitation and not back out on the streets victimizing others.
nice to see they got the person involved…. but… they likely will be out till court and will be right back at it.
if you find out who it is. please follow up with complete story of what happens to these people.
Even if you leave out the names.
There have been a few caught multiple times but never a follow up as to the outcome.
Thanks
Why not publish the name of the thief?
Hi Mike, thanks for your question. This information normally comes to us via an OPP media release which we have not yet received.