Besides the shiny blue paint, there’s one thing that really stands out about Jake Crimmins' '68 Chevy Camaro.
"It was loud," Crimmins' father Todd said.
It was loud. Todd Crimmins speaks in past tense because his son's car was stolen sometime between late Sunday night and Monday morning.
The hot rod was snatched from Crimmins’ parents' Mesa driveway.
"I cried," his mother, Kelly Crimmins, said. "Our heart is broken for them both."
Crimmins recently got out of the Navy and was living with his parents up until a month ago. He and his wife just moved to Las Vegas. Work was hard to find, but he found it, as a field tech for a solar company. They’re having a baby in a few months and he was trying to sell the car. He was asking $28,000 for it.
"We struggled for a little bit," Jake Crimmins said over the phone. "Things were finally looking up, then we got the call Monday morning that the car was gone."
All that’s left in the Mesa driveway near Brown and Lindsay roads are drops of oil and tire marks. Crimmins’ dad thinks someone probably towed it.
"I’d be surprised if somebody was driving it," Todd Crimmins said. "As far as starting it, it was a challenge."
Plus, the steering wheel had a club on it. Because the car wasn’t being driven, Crimmins dropped the insurance.
"It was between making the payments and buying insurance," he said. "Hindsight is 20/20. I wish I would’ve just asked for help."
The thief has to know he stole from a military person. The car had veteran’s plates.
Crimmins said a report was filed with Mesa Police.
