Jeep stolen - 2x in 3 days!

[pdxkevin]

Student's Jeep Stolen Twice in Three Days
NEW ORLEANS - A Tulane University student's sport utility vehicle was stolen twice in three days, once while she waited for police officers to arrive so she could fill out a report.

"I was crying because my car was gone, but eventually I had to laugh because it was all so unbelievable," said Maggie Ardolino, a senior.

Ardolino and five friends left a restaurant on Jan. 17 and found that her 1998 Jeep Cherokee was gone. Ardolino called the New Orleans Police Department to report the theft, her parents filled out insurance paperwork, and she was resigned to believing the vehicle, her high school graduation gift, was history.

Three days later, a Tulane security officer called Ardolino and said her car had been found in the parking lot of a furniture store far from campus. The store's manager had notified Tulane after noticing the Jeep's parking sticker, Ardolino said.

"I thought I was pretty lucky," she said. "It was like a miracle."

Ardolino got a ride to the store, where she found her Jeep next to a loading dock. The front end was wrecked, the interior had been ransacked and the CD player was gone.

"First, I called my parents. Then I called the police, who said they would send somebody out," Ardolino said.

She waited three hours for police to show up, and it grew dark in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Ardolino and her friend were frightened when they spotted two men walking in their direction, so they drove around the block.

When they returned a few minutes later, the Jeep was gone.

Ardolino went to a nearby police station and had to report the entire chain of events, because officers couldn't find a report of the original theft.

"It's unfortunate, and it's certainly not a scenario that happens very often," police spokesman Capt. Marlon Defillo said. "We understand the inconvenience. In this case, a double inconvenience."

Ardolino said she'll get around on foot and by hitching rides with friends until she graduates in May. In future cars, she says, "I know I'm going to have an anti-theft system from now on."