Eddie is on Tribune -
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Published on: 12/28/2007
Last Visited: 9/6/2009
Chicago Web developer Eddie Kim found his stolen car within 24 hours, thanks to a little help from his friends -- and his wireless phone.
Kim double-parked Friday night in front of a friend's apartment on the 700 block of West Buena Avenue on the North Side.
Fearing a ticket, he checked the street from an upstairs window.
The car was missing.
Kim said Chicago police arrived less than five minutes after his call for help, but their patrol of the surrounding neighborhood turned up nothing.
Recalling that he had left his phone in the car, he dialed the number and offered the man who answered $100 if he would return the vehicle.
The man promised to do so within 20 minutes but never appeared.
Acting on a hunch that the man would continue to use his phone, Kim turned for help to Matthew Carney, a friend who works as a sales representative for Sprint PCS in Traverse City, Mich.
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Kim used the Internet to look up addresses that matched the phone numbers Carney found.
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Armed with this information, Kim called South Bend police.
"I don't think they believed me," he said.
Fearing that "nothing would get done if I didn't do it," Kim said he and a friend drove to South Bend Saturday to search the areas where Carney steered them.
"I just kept telling Eddie to promise me that if he saw his car he wouldn't confront anybody," Carney said.
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Indeed, Kim said he saw his car parked at one of the addresses he'd found on the Web.
He spotted a police car parked in front of a nearby house -- the home of a South Bend police officer.
The off-duty officer called for backup, but while the police were en route, Kim said he saw his car whiz down the street.
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Kim said his car had not been damaged -- and even had been cleaned thoroughly and filled with gas.
"I hope this doesn't happen again, but if it does, I won't cancel my cell phone account right away," he said.