The day before moving their son Eric into the Residence Halls for his first year of college, Joseph and Irene Murray parked their white and gold 2001 Ford Excursion outside the University Guest House. They checked into their rooms just before midnight Aug. 19 for a well-deserved rest. After traveling 2,100 miles from their home in North Carolina to Salt Lake City, the family SUV deserved a breather as well.
Unfortunately, it was doomed to a one-way trip.
According to a U police report, when they woke up at 7 a.m. the next morning, the Murrays discovered their car was missing from its parking space, replaced with broken tinted glass and a different vehicle. Their family truck was completely packed with all of their son’s possessions for his first year of school, and several of the family’s own belongings.
Security cameras revealed that the car, license plate number NSC729, had driven out of the parking lot at 3:25 a.m. Fifteen minutes before the truck pulled out, the cameras captured two young men walking around the side of the Guest House in the vehicle’s direction. The campus police have not been able to identify the two men.
Whoever stole the car would not have had any trouble after breaking open the window since its keys were left inside the locked vehicle.
Verizon immediately called Irene Murray’s phone, which had been left inside the car. The phone returned a signal from 2100 West and North Temple. Police searched the whole area, but found nothing. Verizon tried the phone again, but could not get a signal, said Captain Lynn Mitchell.
“They probably ditched the phone or turned it off,” Mitchell said. The cell phone hadn’t traveled far in the four hours between the theft of the truck and the signal.
According to the campus police, Joseph and Irene managed a way home without paying for a plane ticket. Along the way, through Colorado and Kansas, the husband told truckers to keep an eye out for their stolen 2001 Ford Excursion, Mitchell said.
The car could be hidden in a large parking garage such as the airport, he said. Campus police notified airport security of the theft, but the search has been fruitless.