Stolen Truck Recovered--22 Years After the Theft

In October 1976, Mel Patzer parked his pickup truck at McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento and went to his job repairing parts for fighter planes.

When his shift ended, Patzer returned to the spot where he had parked the red 1967 Ford pickup to find only a “puddle of broken glass” where car thieves had broken a window.

Two decades passed. Then a call came a few weeks ago from California Highway Patrol Officer Michael Nusink.

Nusink wanted to know if Patzer was the same man who reported a missing truck long ago in Sacramento County.

“What?” asked Patzer. “You found my red truck?”

Nusink heard him shout to his wife, who cherished memories of trips with their kids in the camper-equipped Ford, “Ethel! They found the red truck!”

“Truly amazing” is how the CHP characterized the reunion of the Patzers and their truck Monday. After a few months, most stolen cars are either recovered, chopped up and the parts sold, or dumped into a river, officers said.

“Losing that truck was like losing one of my kids,” said Patzer at the CHP office in Yuba City. “We had it eight years and had a lot of good times in that truck.”

Mel and Ethel Patzer are both 70. They have cared for about 75 foster children and raised four of their own, who make extended family visits. “This is like finding our prodigal son,” said Ethel Patzer. “We took the children on vacation in the camper that used to be with it. We have been foster parents for 31 years.”

At the time, Ethel Patzer remembered, the worst part of the theft was that the camper was filled with Christmas presents for the foster children.

Although the CHP would not reveal names or the details that led them to the truck, the trail began Sept. 23 when a CHP officer stopped to help a disabled vehicle that turned out to be stolen.

Several weeks of follow-up investigation led to two other stolen vehicles recovered in south Sutter County, including the Patzers’.

Three people were accused of grand theft auto, five were accused of possessing stolen property and two were charged with perjury, authorities said.