- October 31, 2024
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A Palm Coast couple used a Ford smartphone app to find their 2019 Ford Edge after a thief stole it from their driveway Aug. 13.
"From the time I realized the car was not in the driveway, it was probably half an hour before we found the car," said Joan Callahan. "No damage or anything."
"I don’t know how long it would have taken us to find it if we didn’t have the app. ... It was a handy thing to have under the circumstances."
— JOAN CALLAHAN
Callahan and her husband, Thomas Mansfield, who live in Grand Haven, had last seen the car the previous afternoon. Mansfield noticed at about 7:45 Aug. 13 that it was gone from the driveway, and called the Flagler County Sheriff's Office, according to an FCSO incident report.
They'd left the car, which they bought a couple of months ago at Palm Coast Ford, unlocked, with a key fob in the console, according to the report.
But as they were waiting for deputies to arrive, they remembered the app.
"It’s called FordPass and it gives you all sorts of information on your vehicle, and you can locate your vehicle if you’ve lost your vehicle," Callahan said. "My husband was like, 'I want to see if we can locate this car.'"
Sure enough, the app found it — inside another community within Grand Haven.
Mansfield did a quick drive past the location, noted that the car was indeed there, and returned to speak with deputies.
Deputies recovered the car, which was unharmed, although the thief had taken the key and the couple's garage door and front gate opener, plus a couple of iPhone charging cords.
A deputy noted in the incident report that the location at which the car was found, near the corner of North Park Circle and North Park Lane, was the site of another recent residential and vehicle burglary, and that the FCSO had received multiple recent calls about criminal activity in that area.
"I don’t know how long it would have taken us to find it if we didn’t have the app," Callahan said. "It was a handy thing to have under the circumstances."
