Social media helps Naples couple find stolen truck

NAPLES, Fla.- One post on social media helped a Naples Park couple retrieve their stolen truck.

Eric Wartberg’s F-250 was broken into and stolen right out of his driveway. He discovered it was missing when he walked outside to take his son to school.

“It was like seeing a ghost. I can’t even describe the feeling” said Wartberg.

“That’s where it was and that is where it wasn’t,” said Wartberg while referencing where his truck was sitting when it was stolen. “Everyone kept saying ‘No way, it was chopped up and gone,’ we would never see it again,” said Wartberg’s girlfriend Shannon Pruitt.

Pruitt wasn’t giving up that easy. She decided to reach out on social media for help.

“We wanted to see how fast we could catch them, hoping it was still in town,” said Pruitt. So she posted it on the Collier County Yard Sale page.

“Four hundred… it just keeps going,” said Pruitt of the post. “Everyone was sharing it from here to Maine.”

It only took 36 hours and the truck was back in their driveway.

Facebook users say they spotted the truck in Immokalee and Lehigh Acres.

Along Luckett road, in Lehigh is where Lee County deputies recovered it.

“They dumped it,” said Wartberg. “They got $2,000 worth of power tools, but I am thrilled to have it back.”

The truck was found in a ditch, out of gas. “I have been told if it had a full tank of gas, I would never have seen it again,” said Wartberg.

But thanks to one post, hundreds of shares and the community’s help on the road, the couple got their truck back in record time.

“It was pretty shocking when we got the call that early,” said Pruitt. “I didn’t think it was going to be that soon.”