BROOKLYN, Ohio — Last Friday night was shaping up to be a low-key one for Megan Malcolm and her fiancé.
Malcolm had just finished up a trip to urgent care to remove a piece of glass from her foot, and the couple decided to try to salvage the evening with a cozy movie night at their Brooklyn home. The couple stopped by Giant Eagle to pick up snacks, parking her 2022 Kia Sportage in the lot before then heading inside.
But when they returned, pizza rolls and mozzarella sticks in hand, they were in for a surprise.
"We thought it was funny at first because we forgot where we parked," Malcolm said. "And it slowly hit us: 'My car's not here.'"
The couple went back inside, speaking with an officer in the store and making a police report for the stolen car with Brooklyn police, who gave them a ride home.
It was only later that night, when Malcolm's fiancé wanted to run out to the gas station, that they realized his own keys were missing.
"That's when we realized his car keys were in my vehicle that got stolen out of the parking lot," Malcolm explained.
Inside that stolen car were also her house keys and documents from that urgent care visit from earlier in the day, which listed their address.
They went to bed, Malcolm's fiancé attempting to put some wood around the tires of his 2022 Kia Forte parked in their driveway behind a gate, just in case. Malcolm describes their neighborhood as one that's safe, quiet, and filled with kind, older neighbors.
"It's about 1:30 in the morning, and I mean, we didn't even hear these guys come down our driveway, open our gate, anything," she said. "We just heard the car kind of just fly down the driveway, and my fiancé's car was gone."
Luckily, there happened to be a tile tracker inside his car, which the couple was able to use to update police on its whereabouts. Ultimately, police were able to recover the car (now damaged) and take evidence from inside like a soda bottle.
However, the couple's belongings inside were gone, and Malcolm's car is still missing.
"We are expecting in December, and we both had a ton of baby clothes, maternity clothes," she told 3News. "We had stuff for the baby's room — sounds machines, humidifiers, things like that — in our car. We were kind of bargain shopping the previous week for baby stuff.
"We were super excited about it. All of that stuff was gone."
In addition, a brand new fishing pole — which Malcolm had bought her fiancé to mark his first Father's Day as an expectant dad, was stolen.
"It's just devastating," she said. "We saved, we worked really hard. They're brand new cars. All of our payments have been made on time.
"We worked so hard for it, and to have it ripped out from under us, it's just awful."
Now, the couple has changed their locks and installed surveillance cameras, and have looked into additional safety measures like steering wheel locks. Malcolm said those items would have been good safety precautions to have anyway, but says they didn't think they needed them. Now, the thefts have left them on edge.
“We just dumped all of ours savings that we were saving for my maternity leave and for the baby and things like that into this home security system that we had to install," she said. "Everything that goes bump in the night — it could be just someone driving down the street — we're up and we're looking out the windows."
Now, she has a warning for others.
"Take the extra steps. Take the extra safety precautions before it's too late."
WKYC reached out to Brooklyn police, who supplied police reports but did not respond to interview requests. Cleveland police recommend trying to park in well-lit areas, not leaving valuables in plain sight in the car, locking your car doors, and purchasing a steering wheel lock, if possible.