Los Angeles resident Erica Nese is a prop maker by day, ghostbuster by night. During the pandemic, she turned her Kia Soul into a version of the iconic Ecto-1 from the “Ghostbusters” franchise. As you can imagine such a cool car gets a lot of attention, not all of it positive considering it was stolen on Monday, May 6th.
Nese says someone attempted to break into her car last week by putting a screwdriver in the keyhole. She was going to a mechanic to get the damage repaired on Monday. But when she went to the parking garage underneath her Silver Lake apartment building she found it had been stolen.
“It’s really beautiful…it’s a work of art [that] took me about four or five years,” Nese told KTLA following the theft. “But it’s looking very pretty, and it’s not done yet, so I just want the car back so I can keep working on it. It’s like my child.”
The Recovery
Thankfully Nese’s car is kind of hard to miss and on May 7th a neighbor spotted it parked in front of Camino Nuevo Charter Academy in Westlake. They called her and she rushed over to confirm it was her Slimer-green Kia Soul.
Unfortunately, “Drive it like you stole it” isn’t just a figure of speech. Nese’s vehicle was trashed with all of its custom roof add-ons stripped. As well as most of the stickers scratched off and her personal belongings stolen.
Nese reported that other cars in her apartment’s garage had been stolen as well. This is despite, it having a locked gate that requires a code to enter. But all the security measures in the world can’t keep out a car thief who wants something.
No description of a suspect has been released at this time. Nese is currently working on filing a police report. We hope she can rebuild her baby stronger, better, and faster than before. (We have the technology.)
Voice actor AJ Locascio (“X-Men: ’97”) posted the following:
