Caravan theft robs woman of precious mementoes
Christmas was already going to be hard for Marie Amaru after losing her partner in September, but it got worse when someone stole one of her biggest memories of him on Christmas night.
Poppy, a 1970s pop-top caravan, belonged to her late partner Mike and the pair would take it away to the beach every Christmas.
The caravan was worth around $5000, but it was the mementoes from their trips away that Amaru was most heartbroken about losing.
‘‘It was like ‘no, not Poppy. Take anything else’,’’ she said.
‘‘Christmas is hard enough as it is without them doing that. We haven’t used it since he died but the kids were about to take it away in two days. I was going to pop the top for it today and air it out and make it lovely for them.’’
Amaru walked outside her home on Huatoki St, New Plymouth, yesterday morning and noticed Poppy was gone.
She knew it was there at 10pm the day before.
‘‘I was just like ‘Oh no, seriously?’ You know that feeling that you don’t know what you’re seeing and you can’t believe it, there’s just that big gap there.’’
Amaru said Poppy, which they had had for around 10 years, would have been hard to steal as it was all locked up with bricks around the wheels.
‘‘Someone must have been casing it to know that it was there.
‘‘It had this special lock on it. ‘‘It’s a special key that Mike had but because he’s died I don’t know where the key is, so you wouldn’t be able to get it off without that key.’’
Strangely the thieves left the jockey wheel behind and Amaru hopes that will help police locate the caravan. But knowing someone has been there makes her feel unsafe.
‘‘It’s terrible. The fact they left that wheel, their prints might be on it, or they’ve put it down there, they’ve been right by the gate.’’
Amaru said as far as she knew the neighbourhood seemed to be safe. She had reported the theft to the police and they were investigating.
‘‘We just love her. We call her Poppy. It’s really weird to be sentimental over it.
‘‘There were just so many special things in there and little things that we collected off the beach.
‘‘That’s the sad bit, it’ll mean nothing to them. She could be anywhere now.’’