Dec. 30--LUMBERTON -- A former Lumberton firefighter's truck was found "burnt to a crisp" after it was reportedly stolen from his home early Friday morning, according to Lt. Brian Duckworth, fire investigator with the Robeson County Sheriff's Office.
Kenneth Neal Price and his wife were in bed in their Wilton Drive home when his wife heard a car start just after 2:30 a.m, Price said. Startled, Price ran outside and found his black 2005 Chevrolet pick-up truck gone and two men trying to get into his wife's car. Price said the men then got into another car and, along with an SUV also parked nearby, drove away.
"I went ballistic," said Price, who was a firefighter for more than 25 years before retiring from the Pine Terrace Fire Department earlier this year.
"I couldn't even go to sleep that night," Price said. Instead, he went out looking for his car himself. At about 1 p.m. on Friday, hunters spotted the destroyed vehicle at the site of a former mine on the 1100 block of Lovette Road, about seven miles from the Price's home.
Price and his wife Paula said they didn't just lose their car -- they also lost a sense of security.
"It's bad because you think everything is going to be safe in your own back yard," Paula Price said. "That's where I've been born and raised and then something like this happens."
According to Duckworth, the truck "burned until there was nothing left," making it difficult to tell if anything was taken.
"I just don't know how anybody can live with themselves doing something like that," Paula Price said. "I really hope that they find out who did this."
Copyright 2013 - The Robesonian, Lumberton, N.C.
