Springfield woman recounts how thieves stole gas from her son’s truck

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – Carolyn Jolley, a Springfield native, said she heard a bang at 2:30 a.m. on June 2.

Jolley said her son walked out of her house and saw nothing, but when she woke up she smelled gasoline all over the driveway. It was then that his son found his truck’s gas tank punctured.

“I never dreamed of such a thing,” Jolley said. “I had never heard of such a thing.”

Jolley brought her son over from Nebraska for some fun on the 4th of July, but what they found was something she couldn’t expect.

“We could really smell the gas, and it’s all over the floor,” Jolley said.

Jolley said her son’s truck had no broken windows, locks or anything stolen.

“He put $100 in it to fill it up,” Jolley said. “They emptied it and it cost me another 100 to fill it up.”

Jolley said she thinks the thieves didn’t even recover most of the gasoline because they found it was all over her driveway.

She immediately reported the incident to the police and told her neighbors.

“They parked their cars on the side of the street, and when I looked down the street after alerting them, they pulled them all into the driveways,” Jolley said.

Jolley said the puncture was small but came at a high cost.

“It’s $1,000 for the gas tank,” Jolley said.

Luckily, Jolley said they got a temporary patch kit for around $30. An auto shop employee told him that thieves stole gasoline from six of their trucks.

“(The) hard thing is to make people more aware of what’s going on around them, and if they see things to report it,” Jolley said.

But she says the worst part is realizing how far people will go for material things.

“Very disheartening. I mean, if this person who needed gas had come up here and asked to do yard work for gas money. I don’t have a lot of money, but I would have,” Jolley said. “I would much rather help someone that way than have them fly.”

Jolley said she would add security cameras. The police said you should.

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