Thieves steal donated goods from hotel parking lot

GREENWOOD, Ind. (WISH) - Greenwood Police are looking for thieves they say got away with thousands of dollars worth of clothes, food, and even Christmas presents over the weekend.

Connie Mertens and her husband were driving between $7,000 and $8,000 worth of donated items from their church in central Iowa, to families helped by a mission in Elkhorn City, Kentucky.

“From March until now, we collected items and food,” said Connie Mertens. “We had baby beds, high chairs, Christmas presents,” she added.

The Mertens stopped at a Greenwood hotel, near I-65 and County Line Road, along the way early Saturday morning.

Surveillance video from the hotel shows them  pulling into the parking lot just before 1 AM.

When Connie Merten’s husband went back outside to get moving again around 6 AM, he found his white pickup truck and the U-Haul trailer they were pulling were gone.

“He immediately called me and said ‘The truck and trailer are gone,’ and I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘They're gone,’” explained Mertens.

Sure enough, around 3:30 AM, surveillance video shows the truck driving away, with a black SUV following behind it.

“It was just devastating, absolutely devastating,” said Mertens.

The supplies were destined for families in need in the mining hills of Kentucky. Mertens said these supplies were meant to last families through the winter.

“Some of these families, they’ll find them frozen next spring, because they have nothing,” added Mertens.

Connie and her husband rented a car, and went on to their destination.

Now they're on a new mission: to find what belongs to those families in Elkhorn City, Kentucky.

“This bunch that took this, didn’t just take from us. They took from a lot of people,” said Mertens.

Mertens says she's hoping the thieves will simply drop off the U-Haul trailer somewhere, filled with the donated goods.

Police say the thieves were likely simply after the pickup truck. They say thieves sometimes will steal them to use for hauling, or even for snow plowing in the winter.

Greenwood Police are looking for a white Ford F 350 with a crew cab and long box with a white top. The pickup has Iowa plate GJ750. It was pulling a 12 foot U-haul trailer with Colorado plates. If you have any information on this crime, you’re asked to call the Greenwood Police Department.

If you’d like more information, or to donate to Lighthouse Missions in Kentucky, the address is listed below.

Lighthouse Missions

5395 Elkhorn Creek Road

 Elkhorn City, Kentucky 41522