Car thefts stay low in Cape third year in a row

When Debra Rau walked outside her Cape Girardeau home to her driveway, she looked around and felt her stomach tighten.

"My 6-year-old daughter started spinning around with her arms out, you know how little kids do, and kept asking me, 'Mommy, where's your car? Mommy, where's your car?'" Rau said. "It was surreal. I just felt sick."

Her red 2003 Jeep Liberty was not there, just like 37 other vehicles reported stolen this year in Cape Girardeau

While it usually isn't a heinous crime, car thefts are a serious enough problem that they are closely tracked by local law enforcement agencies and the FBI.

In 1980, 142 vehicles were stolen in Cape Girardeau. Between 1987 and 1992, the totals ranged from 57 to 84 thefts. Reports spiked in 1993 with 119 thefts and rose to 135 cars in 1996 before dropping. There have been only 38 reports so far this year.

Police don't know why the totals are down so sharply, Sgt. Rick Schmidt said. They have started no anti-theft initiatives beyond the same security tips they always advise, he said.

Capt. Carl Kinnison said it doesn't take much to have a bad year for car thefts.

"You get one active guy who decides to go out and steal cars and boom, the numbers go up," he said. "And every once in a while, we'll get a ring of thieves come from St. Louis or Memphis."

Typically, there are three reasons people steal cars: profit, immediate need for transportation and joy riding, police say. The thieves are committing crimes of opportunity -- prevent the opportunity and it eliminates the crime.

But sometimes simply locking doors isn't enough. While security systems are encouraged, loud alarms are largely ignored by the public, Schmidt said.

"There are so many false alarms that people are desensitized to hearing a car alarm going off in the parking lot of a mall," he said. "People standing right there might look over, but anyone else won't even bother."

Another option for car owners is a satellite-based tracking services, which work with law enforcement to locate stolen cars, Schmidt said.

Perfect key

Police say most thieves will break a window to get inside or simply open an unlocked door before jamming a screwdriver into the ignition or hot-wiring a car. Sometimes, owners leave keys behind, making it even easier for thieves.

But when Rau's car was stolen Oct. 15, the thief already had a key -- a perfect copy.

Two days earlier, she went shopping with her daughter and they stopped at the Kmart on Kingshighway "just for a quick trip inside," Rau said. Unfortunately, she didn't lock the Jeep.

When she came out of the store, she discovered her daughter's new coat and several other items were gone, including her vehicle ownership and insurance papers and the car's manual.

She reported the theft and considered it a lesson in the value of locking her car. However, she didn't realize that lesson had come too late -- the thief wasn't finished.

The method required little effort by the thief, who simply took the manual with the vehicle identification number, or VIN, to a Jeep dealership and bought a duplicate key.

Dealerships are supposed to request identification and an insurance card before they make copies. Police could not determine which Jeep dealership made the copy of Rau's key, she said.

The thief then went to Rau's home -- having learned the address from paperwork stolen from the car -- inserted the key in the Jeep's locked door and ignition and drove away.

No broken glass, no screwdriver and no blaring alarm drawing attention.

Rau's Jeep was reported found Nov. 17 by an apartment house landlord. It was parked in a lot on Bellevue -- dirty, with food wrappers and empty water bottles littering its inside, but otherwise unharmed.

But by this time, she had already bought another car and took a financial loss of several thousand dollars because of the stolen merchandise and the Jeep's depreciated value in an insurance claim. She also had to pay sales tax on the replacement car.

Rau warns others not to be as naive as she used to be.

"You can't have that Cape Girardeau attitude that we're all safe here and these things don't happen here," Rau said. "But you just don't think about this happening, certainly not out of your driveway where it was locked."

mwells@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160