Ritalin Makes Life Easier

…and just might keep you out of jail if you’re a thief with ADD. Always helps if you can remember where you stole the car from to begin with.

Gas station employee Pam Pease recognized her car Tuesday night when it pulled up to the fuel pump as she swept up cigarette butts.
It was the same beloved blue 1994 Ford Escort station wagon. The one with a missing hub cap. The one with the Missouri license plate that she had reported stolen less than an hour earlier at the Parade gas station at 3050 North W Street.
And there it was, pulling up to pump No. 7.
“It just blew my mind, but there they were,” Pease, 49, said of the two suspects in the theft. “Maybe they forgot where they stole it from. I’m glad it was low on gas.”

(Continued in the extended section as the local fishwrap is being pissy about loading.)

After a brief foot chase near the gas station, Escambia County sheriff’s deputies arrested Artemio Castillo, 49, and Ernesto Garcia, 41. Both men, who had no known address, face charges of grand theft auto and resisting arrest. They are being held in the Escambia County Jail on $7,500 bond each.
After the initial report of the theft, deputies were entering the stolen vehicle data into the computer when they received the second call from Parade employees that the car had reappeared.
“That’s a new one. Maybe they were lost,” Sgt. Ted Roy, Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said Wednesday. “Crimes like that are good for our job security.”
Parade employee Vince Nguyen told deputies the two men matched the description of a pair who asked him for a ride to Mississippi just before 7 p.m. as he was arriving for work. Nguyen realized Pease’s car was missing about 7:30 p.m. Pease still had the keys.
Pease was sweeping up the parking lot about 8 p.m. when she saw the Escort stop at the pump.
Nguyen, who speaks Spanish, asked the men why they returned.
“They told him they needed gas,” Pease said.
Nguyen shut off the vehicle and offered the men water while co-workers called 911. The men fled, but Nguyen followed them through a back alley, Pease said.
One of the men ran into heavy brush, but was apprehended by a deputy with the assistance of Oden, a K-9. Another sheriff’s deputy apprehended the second suspect across the street from the gas station.
Pease and her husband, Robert, had just moved to Pensacola from Missouri two months ago and are staying with his parents.
“We were just trying to get back on our feet,” Pease said. “That car’s not much, but it’s all I own.”

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