Woman chases down daughter's stolen car

ST. LOUIS -- A woman who said she went crazy when she spotted two men driving down a St. Louis street in her daughter's stolen car chased it down and got it back.

The tactic was not exactly endorsed by police, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, but it came to a peaceful ending when the thieves she confronted on a parking lot fled without harming her, though one did steal her purse.

It started about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, when Amanda Schellert, 26, of St. Louis, stepped inside a service station at Hampton Avenue and Interstate 44 to wash her hands and buy a soda.

When Schellert returned, her black Honda Civic -- with the keys left in the ignition -- was gone. She called police and then phoned her mother at work for a ride.

With her daughter's sobs ringing in her ears, Margaret Schellert, 45, was sitting at a stop sign at Taylor and Duncan avenues when she looked up and saw the missing car.

"I knew it was hers because the tinting on the back window is bubbling," she told the newspaper. "I also recognized the license plate." She made a U-turn and followed the thieves to an Imo's Pizza, where they stopped in the parking lot and she blocked them in. "I thought it was perfect," Margaret Schellert said. "They were going to stop for a pizza, and I was going to get my daughter's car back."

Margaret Schellert, a petite woman who works as a receptionist, began screaming when she jumped out of her car. The driver threw the stolen vehicle into reverse to scare her. Then he tried to drive forward over the sidewalk, she said.

"I was screaming at the top of my lungs and grabbed him (through the window) by the collar," she said. "I was beating on him, pulling on him. Anything I could do to keep him from getting away."

She said she wrestled the car keys from the driver, who jumped out and got into her van. But unlike her daughter, Margaret Schellert had taken her keys with her. The man grabbed her purse and ran.