‘Heart-wrenching’: Family’s motorhome stolen from front yard just days after buying it

A New Brunswick family’s summer plans have hit a roadblock. Their motorhome was stolen from their front yard less than a week after it was purchased.

Angelina Flynn said she and her husband saved for more than a year to purchase the recreational vehicle, hoping to take their children on several trips throughout the province this summer.

She described the purchase as a “dream” for her family, until it quickly became a nightmare, when they awoke on Monday morning to find their newly purchased home-on-wheels was nowhere to be found.

“People can steal a lot of things from your property but when they steal your dream, it’s heart-wrenching,” she said during an interview with Global News on Tuesday.

The family paid about $10,000 for the vehicle. It had only been on their property for five days before it was stolen.

“We’ve spent the weekend enjoying each other’s company, playing cards, cleaning it, and moving our belongings into it. I’m just so grateful that I didn’t let my children sleep in the motor home on Sunday night,” she said.

Flynn, who lives on a farm in the rural community of Cornhill, said she’s in disbelief that someone was able to steal the 33-foot vehicle while maneuvering around the tractor parked in her driveway. She said her children are heartbroken that the new family camper has disappeared.

She said her husband thought she was joking when she first questioned him on the whereabouts of the motorhome.

“I looked out the window as I was making my children sandwiches and I said to my husband ‘Where’s the motorhome?’ and he thought that I had moved it,” she explained. “But it was really gone.”

Flynn said the family remembered to lock the vehicle every night since parking it on their property, except for overnight Saturday. Unfortunately, that was all it took.

“The motorhome was so close to our house. I mean, I’m in my own yard,” she said.

Concerns for safety

She said the recent theft has heightened concerns for her children’s safety and the overall security of the farm.

“I didn’t even want to let my kids play outside last night after supper because I don’t know if someone’s hiding in the woods watching me,” she asked. “How would they know no one was in that motorhome to take it? We had it for five days, it’s not something that’s been around here.”

Flynn said her family lives in a relatively remote area therefore she never considered herself at a high risk of having property stolen.

“I am in the middle of nowhere. I do have a big yard. I have a driveway that they had to come in and manipulate this RV around my tractor to get out of the driveway while we were sleeping,” she said.

In addition to the vehicle serving as her family’s ticket to a summer vacation, she intended for the motorhome to service a larger group of children as well.

“I do a lot of foster relief on the weekends to give foster parents a break,” she explained. “Some of them have never camped or experienced a bonfire before and roasted marshmallows, so to give somebody that experience in my own yard was something that I know the kids are going to be equally as heartbroken as our family is.”

She’s in close contact with the New Brunswick RCMP regarding the investigation. A $1,000 reward is also being offered to anyone who can locate the whereabouts of the motorhome.

“We want to have our dream returned to us,” she said.

In a social media post on Tuesday, police asked anyone who’s seen the stolen vehicle to contact the Sussex RCMP at 506-433-7700.

“The motorhome is described as a white and blue 2000 Ford Conquest Gulf Stream with New Brunswick licence plate KED 405,” police said in a statement.