A 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle left a single-car garage in unincorporated South Sacramento, California, on the afternoon of Aug. 29, according to a Stolen 911 case listing, and its owner was still without the stolen 1970 Chevelle when CBS Sacramento reported the story Oct. 12. Surveillance cameras recorded the whole thing, CBS said: someone breaking into the garage, finding the keys and driving away, in about two and a half minutes.
Marc Hinch, a retired California Highway Patrol auto theft investigator who now runs Hinch Investigations and Stolen 911, is helping search for the car. He told CBS the suspect seen walking toward the owner’s home on the video is wearing what appears to be a University of Houston “Dad” shirt. “Someone knows who that is,” Hinch said.
Surveillance video of the Aug. 29 theft, as published by CBS13 CBS Sacramento. The footage carries a Stolen911.com watermark.
What the case listing says and doesn’t say
Stolen 911 describes the car as a gray-and-silver 1970 Chevelle SS 454 convertible with a black soft top and two black center rally stripes, and it cites a Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office case, number 26-266700. The listing gives the time as around 4:12 p.m. and names Penal Code 459 (burglary) and Vehicle Code 10851(a) (vehicle theft) as the offenses. Those are the sections the listing cites, not charges against anyone. Neither the listing nor CBS names a suspect, and as of Oct. 14 The Auto Wire found no public report of an arrest or a recovery.
How California law counts those two and a half minutes
Each step on the video lands in a different section of the code. The state’s burglary statute, Penal Code 460, makes a burglary of “an inhabited dwelling house” or “the inhabited portion of any other building” first-degree burglary and calls every other burglary second degree. Section 461 sets the first-degree range at two, four or six years in state prison; second degree carries up to a year in county jail or a felony sentence under Penal Code 1170(h). Whether a garage counts as part of an inhabited home is what separates the two, and nothing public says how this garage is built or whether it is attached to the house…