ELYRIA – In all the years Danyelle Owens has lived in Elyria, she has never had a car stolen.

That all changed Sunday evening when Owens, 42, walked into the No. 1 Kitchen on South Abbe Road to pick up some food. Her mistake? She left her car running with the keys inside.

By the time she walked out of the restaurant, her 2000 Dodge Durango was speeding out of the parking lot. Inside the car were her purse, credit cards and BlackBerry cell phone.

“How many of us have done that at least once in our lives – thinking all I had to do was run in and grab my food. I was going to be less than two minutes,” Owens said.

By Thursday, Owens’ luck turned around. While riding in a friend’s car on North Abbe Road, Owens spotted her stolen car parked in front of the Circle K, her rosary beads still hanging from the rearview mirror.

She called police, and a trooper from the Ohio Highway Patrol stopped the vehicle from leaving a nearby Marathon gas station, where it was being filled with gas.

“I was really giving up hope of ever seeing it again,” she said. “The insurance company told me to be realistic and know the police were not driving around Elyria looking for my car. I thought for sure that if the police did find it, it was going to be trashed or torn apart.”

Owens said she had everyone she knew on the lookout for her vehicle.

“I told everyone I know that if my car was going to be found it was going to be found by us,” she said.

Owens was with a friend, Daniel Burnett, when they spotted her SUV.

“I really could not believe she found it and got it back,” he said.

Police Chief Duane Whitely said it’s not very often that owners recover their own stolen cars.

“A lot of people do watch out for their cars when they are stolen, and that is not a bad thing,” he said. “It becomes dangerous when they try to recover them on their own. We don’t want that. If they see it, we want them to call us and let us do the dirty work. That’s just the safest way to do things.” The timetable of when Owens’ car was stolen and recovered also includes another moment that still baffles the longtime Elyria resident. The man whom police arrested with her SUV, Cane Jackson, 36, of Amherst, also was the same man Elyria police arrested for allegedly using her credit card at the Burger King at Chestnut Commons less than two hours after Owens reported her card stolen.

The first time he was arrested by Elyria police, he spent a night in jail and was released following a court hearing the following morning.

The second time police stopped him – after Owens’ phone call – Jackson was once again arrested. However, he was charged with only misdemeanor traffic violations and was later released.

The Ohio Highway Patrol made the second arrest and is working on filing felony charges, according to court records.

“It kind of makes you wonder about the legal system,” Owens said.

Police said in a report that when Jackson was arrested Sunday in relation to the credit card, he was riding in a red Dodge Caravan with Adele Grier, 41, of Oberlin.

The pair went to the Burger King around 10:45 p.m., ordered food and attempted to pay with Owens’ FirstMerit debit card, according to the police report. By then, Owens had reported the card stolen, and it was declined.

Employees inside the restaurant told Grier to pull over while they sorted out the problem with the card, but they instead called police. Grier drove away but later was found by police near Furnace and Monroe streets.

Grier was charged with misuse of a credit card, two counts of receiving stolen property and possession of criminal tools. Jackson was arrested for possession of a counterfeit controlled substance, misuse of a credit card, two counts of receiving stolen property and possessing criminal tools.

According to court records, the pair was taken to the Lorain County Jail and released Monday on personal bonds after appearing in court. Jackson’s attorney successfully argued Jackson was not a flight risk because he owned property in the area and had family in Lorain County.

Knowing that Jackson is out after going to jail both Sunday and Thursday does not sit well with Owens. The night her car and purse were stolen, she couldn’t sleep thinking someone would come into her house using her own house keys. She has since had all the locks changed.

Now, she said she wants to see the case to completion.

“What goes around comes around,” she said. “That night when he was sitting in the police car, I told him he was going down.”

In 2009, police said, 85 cars were reported stolen in the city.

Whitely said working such investigations are hard because Elyria does not have a dedicated car theft unit. When vehicles are stolen, the information is entered into a statewide computer database, and officers are given details about the vehicle to have in their cars when they are patrolling.

Whitely said that to lessen the likelihood of becoming a victim, drivers should heed to some simple advice: “Don’t leave your keys in the car and leave it running.”

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

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