PITTSBURGH — Michelle Releic said her Easter weekend took a turn Friday morning when her 2011 Chevy Malibu disappeared from outside her home on Wapello Street in Brighton Heights.
“It’s right in front of my house. I check the Ring doorbell, you can see somebody just come up full clothed, hood up, 30 seconds gone,” Releic said.
Pittsburgh Public Safety confirmed officers are seeking clues regarding the reported vehicle theft.
Releic said police contacted her early Sunday morning after finding her license plate in the West End and her car behind a Giant Eagle on Cedar Avenue on the North Side.
Investigators also sent her a photo of a suspect with the vehicle.
“She said that he stopped and put gas in it at that gas station on Cedar, he went grocery shopping at the Giant Eagle,” Releic said.
The car was taken to a McGann and Chester lot, where detectives told her they were unable to recover fingerprints.
When Releic went to pick it up, she said a tow company employee told her she’d have to pay a hefty price to get the car back.
“She told me the price and I was like, ‘Excuse me, can you tell me that number again?’ And then she said $320,” she said.
Releic said she is frustrated that she had to pay to recover her stolen vehicle.
“I just feel really badly that this would happen to anyone else. That you are a victim and then you get victimized again by the system. It’s just like, why do I have to pay to get my car recovered when it was stolen in the first place?” Releic said.
She also found items inside the car that did not belong to her, including a speaker, an air compressor, high-end sunglasses, and a house key and a vehicle key fob for another vehicle.
“Marijuana, there was a crack pipe in there. I got my daughter in with me, trying to explain just don’t touch anything,” she said.
Releic said her insurance company will not cover the cost because the car was not damaged in a crash, though she says it now has mechanical issues.
“I work really hard and it’s not easy for me to come up with money to payout for somebody else’s mistake,” she said.
Police have not made any arrests and tell us the investigation is active and ongoing.
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