It was not the morning Amanda Melnychuk had hoped for when she woke up on Tuesday.
Melnychuk’s children left the house to walk to school as usual, but they quickly returned to tell her that the garage door was open and the family car was gone.
“I said ‘you guys are being silly, I parked it in the garage last night,’” said Melnychuk. “They said ‘no, it’s open and there’s no car in there.’”
She said the robbers must have broken into her garage after midnight and stolen the car, as well as the spare tires and some bed frames.
The robbers didn’t even take off out the driveway, but tried to drive on her lawn. The car got stuck on the front lawn, so the thieves used a shovel to dig it out. They left the shovel behind.
“Now I have to look at it and the kids have to look it, there’s no way to really get rid of that,” said Melnychuk.
Even if Melnychuk had woken up while the robbery was in progress, she wonders what may have happen.
“It’s probably better I didn’t, I would have been more scared,” she said. “After seeing how they drove off, who knows what their emotional or mental status was. It’s better I didn’t run in to them, it just would have made me more scared.”
The single mother had heard a similar story from a friend of hers who had her garage and car broken into just before Christmas.
She has called the Red Deer RCMP, who are investigating the incident.
It has been a rough couple of days for her family. A couple days before the latest theft, her son’s GT snow racer had been stolen from her front yard.
“That’s where I’m hurting the most is for my kids,” said Melnychuk. “I’m an adult I can manage my emotions. We learn that as we get older, but my kids they don’t have that yet. All they’re going to feel is probably scared, so I need to make sure they feel safe.”