It was a strange reunion in early March for one man and his two stolen cars.
Police found the vehicles abandoned on a city street, and the thieves left behind quite a mess.
The victim, who we are only identifying as Alex, was driving one of those cars home from the police station. That's when he discovered the bad guys left behind a clue.
"As soon as I got in the car, my phone connected to the Ford Sync system," said Alex. "So I thought to myself, 'I wonder if...'"
It turns out the thieves phones left behind a treasure trove of data inside the car's infotainment system.
"[The system] can store everything from GPS information, navigation data, saved destinations, and previous destinations," Alex continued.
Police will not say what exactly they found, but they say it helped build a case against the alleged thieves.
"When we have that data, we can compare it to our witness interviews, we can compare it to our physical evidence and circumstantial evidence," said Sgt. John Poole. "It really can be the last puzzle piece we need to close a case."
In this case, it helped bring Alex some peace of mind knowing his SUV's infotainment system is capable of catching a car thief.
