ST. LOUIS – When Patty Dial went to bed in her Tower Grove South home on Saturday night, her Nissan Rouge was right in front of her home.
“I woke up on Sunday morning, and it was just gone,” she said.
In a neighbor’s security video, a car is seen pulling onto Dial’s street right in front of her home. Someone starts Dial’s car while another goes and checks on another car across the street.
About a minute later, Dial’s vehicle and the suspect’s car drive away.
This is not the first time this has happened to dial. On Aug. 17, she reported another one of her vehicles stolen. It was found damaged a couple of weeks later, about three miles away from her home. Dial said it was totaled.
“This just can’t continue to go on. We need police presence around here. It just seems to go unnoticed,” she said.
According to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, auto thefts are down 37 percent in Tower Grove South this year. But with Dial’s recent luck, the statistic is hard for her to believe.
“Sometimes I feel like I just want to lock my house up and just stay in there and not go out. You know, you feel violated. You work hard for what you have, and you can’t even keep it and you can’t even defend it,” she said.
Police are asking for help in the case. Anyone with information or security video of the incident is encouraged to call a detective at 314-444-0100.