A Georgia man apparently saw an idling car outside a daycare and decided to treat it like an unexpected upgrade from walking. The problem was that the vehicle belonged to someone else, and it was carrying enough technology to make disappearing with it considerably harder.
The Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office says the car was taken on August 17 while a mother briefly went inside to drop off her child. She had left the engine running for roughly 30 seconds, which was apparently long enough for the suspect to get inside and drive away.
Deputies didn’t have to rely on guesswork for very long because the victim had left her AirPods inside the vehicle. Their location helped officers track the car while a nearby Tesla also captured video of the person police were looking for.
The suspect eventually abandoned the vehicle near a subdivision and continued on foot, but that didn’t improve his situation. According to deputies, he left various items behind as he walked and then tried hitchhiking before members of the warrant unit spotted him.
AirPods and a Tesla Make This a Very Short-Lived Getaway
The AirPods effectively gave deputies a moving location to follow as the stolen vehicle traveled away from the daycare. Meanwhile, the nearby Tesla provided video evidence that helped officers recognize the suspect once the search moved away from the car.
Deputies eventually found the vehicle abandoned near the entrance to a subdivision and began concentrating their search in the surrounding area. The suspect had moved on foot by then, but authorities say he left items behind along his route that made following him a little less mysterious.
Members of the warrant unit later spotted him trying to hitchhike and took him into custody. The sheriff’s office joked that deputies were happy to give him a ride, although their destination was the county jail rather than wherever he had hoped to go.
Deputies Turn the Arrest Into Another “Felony Friday”
The Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office didn’t exactly write up the case like a standard police report. Its social media post mocked the suspect as “Mr. ‘I Didn’t Think This Thru'” and compared his decision to take the idling vehicle to believing the universe had personally provided him with free transportation.
The department also dubbed his destination the “Freeman Hotel,” its recurring tongue-in-cheek nickname for the jail. By the end of the ordeal, the victim had her vehicle back, and deputies had transformed what could have been a much longer theft investigation into another entry in their “Felony Friday” series.
There was one awkward detail in the department’s post, however, as the tagged Primrose School of Cumming West later clarified that the theft did not happen at its location. The school still used the opportunity to remind parents to lock their vehicles when dropping off or picking up their children.
Commenters Think the Technology Did Most of the Heavy Lifting
A lot of commenters immediately noticed that AirPods and a Tesla camera played major roles in solving the case, with one person joking, “So a Tesla camera, and AirPods solved this case, not Flock cameras.” Another made essentially the same point by writing, “Got all of that to happen without needing Flock!”
Others focused more on how preventable the theft appeared to be, with several reminding drivers not to leave vehicles running unattended even for a few seconds. One commenter summed it up simply with, “Never leave your vehicle running, or the doors unlocked; that’s all it takes!”
Naturally, plenty of people also enjoyed the sheriff’s unusually sarcastic write-up, especially the references to a “gift from the universe” and the “Freeman Hotel.” One commenter called the description “comic genius,” while another joked that the jail apparently requires “no reservations.”