Crime & Safety
Wrecked Vehicle Found on I-985 Reported Stolen
Man claims vehicle was taken while he was at Bogan Park.
Gwinnett County Police are investigating a Sept. 2 accident that may -- or may not -- have involved a stolen vehicle.
Police were dispatched to an accident on I-985 south of Highway 20 at approximately 3:45 p.m. on Sept. 2. The responding officer found one vehicle, a silver GMC Yukon, stuck on the metal median fence. No one was with the vehicle, but a passerby who had called police said he saw three people in the vehicle shortly after the accident.
At 4:15 p.m., police communications informed the officer that the owner of the wrecked vehicle had just called to report the GMC stolen. The officer, who noted in the report that there were no signs of forced entry on the vehicle and no steering column damage, drove to the owner’s home.
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The vehicle owner said he had taken his son to Bogan Park at approximately 3 p.m. and had noticed the vehicle missing at 4:30 p.m. Call records, however, showed he called police at 4:02 p.m. The officer asked the vehicle owner if he still had the keys to his vehicle. The vehicle owner said he had them inside the house and spent five minutes inside reportedly looking for the keys before walking back outside and informing the officer that both sets of keys were in his wife’s black purse, which had been inside the vehicle at the time of the theft. The officer had located and inventoried the contents of the black purse while handling the accident investigation and noted the purse was mostly empty other than a few WIC vouchers.
The officer asked the vehicle owner to repeat his account of events. During the retelling, the vehicle owner said both his son and wife were with him at Bogan Park when the GMC was allegedly stolen.
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In the report, the officer wrote, “It was apparent the driver fled the accident scene. From my experience, it was not uncommon for the driver or registered owner to report the recently crashed vehicle as stolen in an attempt to receive the insurance payoff.”
The case is listed as active.
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