Gone in 60 Seconds
Author: LaChelle Neudorfer

Sixty seconds is how long it took our lives to change last December just days before Christmas.

Since I stay home to be with our daughter, my husbands sells a few cars here and there to make some extra money to keep us going. Last December we were selling a 1995 Chevrolet Impala SS that was teal with gray leather and in great condition.

I am home a lot so I take most of the calls inquiring about the car. I give them some general information and take their name and number for my husband to call them back. A week before Christmas one guy in particular called several times and eventually set up a meeting to view the car. He was from the Atlanta area and we are 30 miles northeast of Atlanta so my husband agreed to meet him at a gas station off of a major highway to make it easier for him.

We were hopeful that this guy was going to buy the car. On the way out the door I asked my husband if he was going to take the title and he said no. Once he sees some money, then he will hand over the title.
So there I sat at home awaiting the call saying it is sold. The call I got was not what I was expecting.

"Hello?" I said.
"Baby, he took the car!" my husband exclaimed out of breath.
In my mind all I thought was, great! That will be some extra money to help out with the bills we have. But then it hit me.
"Are you joking?" I asked not wanted to believe what he was trying to tell me.
"No Baby. He told me to get out of the car and he took it!"
"Where are you at? I will come and get you."

I was not prepared to leave the house, so I had to scramble to get myself and our two-year-old out the door. Moments later I was flying over speed bumps in our neighborhood. My daughter didn't know whether to be scared or if this was supposed to be fun. She said, " Scary Mommy!"

I knew where my husband was supposed to meet the guy and I raced over there to see if his car was still in the parking lot of the gas station. No luck. There must have been another person hiding in the car because my husband thought the guy was alone. I am not sure what I would have done if I had found them; I just knew I had to try.

I then drove frantically to get to my husband and he was not where the guy left him. I drove to our neighborhood and there he was. He had walked in a daze all the way to our neighborhood.
I knew he had not called the police so I did so at that time knowing he was in shock.

Neither one of us has ever been in such a dramatic and scary position nor had we ever expected to be in one. From what I could gather from my husband the test drive was going fine and then at a stop sign the guy told him to get out of the car. My husband gave him a stunned and confused look so the guy went on to explain that he had a gun and would kill his family if he gave him trouble. My husband scrambled out of the car and watched it speed off never to be seen by us again.

Once we got home to wait on an officer I began calling the number we had for the guy who changed our lives. The first few time I got a message that I could not understand and eventually the number was turned off. This guy works fast! I didn't stop there. I then tried to do research on the Internet to see if I could find anything. I was grasping at straws desperate to get our investment back.

It was a tough Christmas that year with the knowledge of what had happened. We still have not fully recovered emotionally. Especially my husband. It haunts him to this day and will probably continue forever. Very few people close to us know what happened. We kept it to ourselves to keep the pain to a minimum.

I have come through this experience learning some things that make this experience not a total loss. One: Get information from a driver's license when someone is coming to look at a vehicle for sale. Two: Take someone with you to wait where the interested party leaves their car. Three: The realization I came to that has kept me going, especially through Christmas, is that my husband is still alive and that the guy who changed our lives in sixty seconds has some serious issues. He has to deal with that pain everyday and will never have the peace that we have.