LONGMONT, Colo. — Anna Shandy was with her daughter at the Longmont Recreation Center last Thursday when someone broke into her locker, grabbed her car keys and stole her blue Kia Sportage from the gym parking lot.
“I was scared. I was really scared and shocked,” Shandy said. “...I walked out to the parking lot and it wasn’t there and I just thought, ‘Oh my God! Where’s my car?'"
She called the police, who told her the chances of recovering the vehicle were 50-50.
“They had the house keys, my garage door opener," Shandy said. "They had everything.”
And then there was no news until Monday, when Shandy’s husband Nathin Shandy was driving home from work on northbound Interstate 25 in his work truck. A car tailing him from behind sped up and cut him off. He recognized the car and the license plate – it was his family’s stolen Kia.
“[It wasn't] until she got directly in front of me that I was 100 percent – that is my license plate and that is my car," Nathin Shandy said.
Nathin Shandy called 911 and followed the car to Firestone and Colorado boulevards in Firestone. A short time later, Firestone police stopped the car at the nearby King Soopers gas station.
“The car drove right in front of me," Nathin Shandy said. "I mean, that’s what I think is the craziest, you know?”
Two suspects -- a man and a woman -- tried to run, but police caught up with them and took the duo into custody.
“The sheer odds of something like that happening – I mean, I felt like I won the lottery,” Nathin Shandy said.
“Yeah. We should have bought some lottery tickets that day. It was our lucky day, I think,” Anna Shandy added.
The couple still can't believe the impeccable timing that led to the vehicle being recovered.
“Someone's looking out,” Nathin Shandy said. “The stars were aligned. What are the chances? The millions of people driving up and down on I-25 all day long, that my own car would cut me off right in front of me.”
Nathin Shandy also credited the quick work of police responding to the scene in getting the vehicle back. And other than some dirt on the inside, he said there was no significant damage to the car.
“Thanks Firestone police," Nathin Shandy said. "They did an amazing job. They were on it.”
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