The theft of a vehicle — with a dog inside — from a parking lot of a St. John's Walmart has led to charges against a teenage girl.
Colin Hanames had just paid for some mulch at the store and pulled his father's car up to the curb near the entrance to load the heavy bags in the back.
He left the car to bring the cart to the corral, and returned to where his car was — only to find it stolen.
I was thinking … how I could call home and break it to them that my dad's best friend had been taken.- Colin Hanames
"It just happened so quick," he said.
Inside his father's 2017 Kia Soul was Baby, the five-year-old rescued Brittany spaniel his father adores.
"I was thinking about my dog and of course my father, his brand-new vehicle, thinking about my family and that and how I could call home and break it to them that my dad's best friend had been taken," Hanames told CBC's St. John's Morning Show.
While the dog and car were missing, family members posted on Facebook asking if anyone had information about Baby's whereabouts, worried she would have been thrown out on the road by the three people who jumped into the car and drove off.
After looking around the parking lot for a few minutes, asking if anyone had seen what happened, Hanames called his brother to come get him.
Hoping to find car abandoned
Knowing the car was low on gas, he thought the car may have been ditched nearby, so the two brothers looked around nearby gas stations, going inside to ask to look at security footage.
"My brother came out running. He said that he was just talking to my mom and that they located the vehicle in Tors Cove," said Hanames.
"At the time they had said that it was only a little bit of damage and that, but they had actually hit someone, a hit and run, before the big accident that was up in Tors Cove."
Monday night, CBC News talked to Lamont Hanames, who owns Baby and the stolen vehicle. He said at that time he wasn't worried about damage to the vehicle, and just wanted to get his dog back.
In the meantime, Hanames said his family is happy to have Baby home.
"There was a lady that was involved in the car accident that we can't thank enough. She had used a string from her coat to tie the dog on," he said.
"We have her home and we had her examined and she was gonna need to get an X-ray and that, so we set up a GoFundMe looking for a bit of support."
17-year-old girl charged
An RNC spokesperson told CBC on Tuesday that they received the report of the stolen car around 5 p.m., and 45 minutes later received a report of a car matching the description hitting a truck on Columbus Drive and driving off.
Just before 6 p.m., the car was spotted in Mount Pearl, and officers headed to the area to stop it, but the driver sped off again and it wasn't seen until a second accident, around 6:45 p.m.
A 17-year-old girl has been charged with car theft, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and failing to stop for police.