This truck right here's the one they took.

LOGANSPORT, IN—Right out there, right in plain damn sight, a pickup truck got stoled last night out by the Murphy place, sources done reported Thursday.


According to eyewitnesses who seen it parked there, the truck, one of them nice Ford F-150 XLTs with the 4x4 and some real professional-type detail work that probably cost a bundle, was black.

"Everyone knows that's my truck. Why'd someone go and take it?" said owner Dale Hest, 35, the stepson of ol' Otto Murphy. "I just don't get it."


"Had my fishing lures in the backseat, too," Hest added. "The good ones I use for bass."

An investigation on the truck-stealing reportedly got underway real quick, but Logansport police said they ain't got a hint who done it. What with the broke glass all over the ground by where it was, it looks like the window got bust, and officers confirmed the thief might've found the spare key in the glove box and just drove 'er right off.


Hest said you can bet that ol' boy who stealed the truck is having him a time off-roading, towing a bass boat, or such.

"At this time, we have patrolmen going round countywide, checking salvage yards and car lots to see if some fella's been trying to sell a Ford," investigator Craig Schwanz said. "Problem is, trucks get stoled all the time. And a pretty one like that could look real fine to a guy comin' along who happens to want himself a truck."


Hest got the pickup with money borrowed to him by his brother-in-law, saying he needed it for his carpentry business, though Hest reportedly could have got a more used truck that was less fancy if he was just gonna fill it full of tools and whatnot.

According to most folks, the guy that took the truck was probably that Jensen boy, which'd figure, on account of he spent time in juvie for stealing cartons of cigarettes down to the Huck's and then selling them to other schoolkids, and he only got out 'cause they couldn't by law keep him no more.


Others reckon it ain't happened anything like that, and the thieves are liable to just be young boys doing as young boys will, not meaning no real harm or nothing.

Still and all, sources said, that don't bring Dale Hest's truck back.

"I'm praying for him," said Melanie Hofer, who's kin to Hest on her mother's side. "He should count his blessings that it was just his truck and that the good Lord spared him and his family getting hurt. At least they left the [old Toyota Tacoma he picked up offa his cousin down by Indianapolis] so he can still get around. That's a blessing right there."


Local crime statistics indicate this ain't the first time by a long shot a truck been stoled round these parts past few months. Back about July, Doug Hensley had his half-ton dually with the Hemi took from the Hardee's parking lot, even though he weren't in there but for 15 minutes. Furthermore, a UPS truck got reported as stoled in March, but that was because he left the keys right in there, and you can't do that, and anyhow, it turned up a couple blocks away.

People in Logansport are like to believe that, if this trend continues, their own truck could be next.


"Let's see 'em try and get mine," said resident Jeff Kramer, a drunk but a good guy basically, who owns a pickup. "All they're gonna get's a size-12 boot up their ass."

With little to do but sit and wait, Hest said he hopes his truck will turn up somewheres pretty soon, 'cause that load of cinder blocks ain't haulin' itself up to Winamac.