A car that was stolen in Kelowna has been recovered, thanks to the effort of friends, social media and a brazen cellphone video.
According to Michelle Casey, her daughter’s 1998 Honda Civic was stolen either Sunday night or Monday morning. Casey reached out via social media to inform friends and family of the suspected theft.
“I went out to start my car to come to work and it just wasn’t there,” said car owner Angela Corfe, adding she quickly contacted police and local tow-truck companies about her missing Civic. “My mom said get it on Facebook, and so we got it on Facebook.”
The post was shared and a family friend stumbled across the car in a Kelowna parking lot. A cellphone video shows an exchange as the friend confronts an unknown man about the car.
“Hi. That’s a really nice Civic. One of those was stolen earlier today. Did you guys do that by chance?”
The man denied stealing the car, and eventually drove off. Police told Global News they are aware of the theft.
Taking the video was Nick Pawlikowski.
“We were looking at another car, gonna go trade vehicles, and we saw the vehicle that looked like the one we saw posted online that was reported stolen,” said Pawlikowski. “So we just kinda walked up to the guy and asked him if stole it.”
Pawlikowski said what alerted him that this Honda was the stolen one was “the exhaust tip. It’s a pretty rare exhaust tip. Only like three people in the Okanagan have one, or around that amount of people. It’s a very distinguishable car, definitely not one you should be stealing. When you’re a car person, you see stuff like that all the time.
“It’s very easy to spot and my friends, they like blasted Facebook with the post, so I was aware and then I put two and two together.”
“My buddy Nick and I were just sitting in our car, essentially just chilling out, waiting for a few friends,” said Jesse Hejna. “All of a sudden, we see a green Honda just roll up. Nick had seen the post on Facebook that it was stolen.”
“Right away, we’re like ‘we gotta confront the guy.’ So we headed on over.”
Casey later said the car was recovered in a Superstore parking lot.
Pawlikowski said when he first spotted the vehicle, “we just took pictures first, and we were like ‘Oooh, what are these people doing?’ After that, we were like ‘they’re walking away; we should probably follow them or something.’ And then we just said hi, and then it just kind of rolled from there. We didn’t even have a plan. We just wanted the car back for my friend.”
After the incident, Pawlikowski said they called police immediately, adding he was glad to hear the car was found.
“I was happy. I was glad that they got it back and that it wasn’t totalled or something worse, like parted out. The fact that they got it back is good. That’s all that matters.”