My Favorite Ride: Clues in van crash in IU parking garage include Easter candy wrapper
The Case of the French Family's Crashed Honda Odyssey may never be solved, which is not so terrible since no one was hurt and the minivan can be fixed.
But the situation did heap some guilt on just-turned-12 Juni French, who is at the heart of the day-after-Easter van caper.
That's because the family's 2019 vehicle was a prime target for theft because it was unlocked: Juni had lost the electronic key fob somewhere in the vehicle.
Anyone could have come along, opened the door, pushed the ignition button, started up the engine and driven away.
And someone did. The van was stolen, and then crashed at the Indiana University Poplars parking garage.
Bus stabbing: Bloomington woman accused of stabbing IU student of Chinese descent charged with hate crime
The thief left a trail of Easter candy-related items: a box that had contained a 1.45-ounce solid milk chocolate Hershey's Kiss wrapped in silver pastel foil and what appeared to be a white, plastic Easter egg.
"Seriously, it's like an episiode of 'Scooby Doo,'" said Kelley French, Juni's mom.
Indiana University Police Department officers discovered the discarded packaging and the egg near the van, as if the culprit had dropped it as they went on their way.
It was collected as evidence.
Juni's parents agreed not tell her what happened, especially since she played a pivotal role in the van being stolen and crashed.
But a police officer asked her dad to show Juni pictures of the evidence from the scene sent to his phone. When he did, she denied ever seeing the white egg or consuming a giant chocolate kiss like the one pictured on the wrapper left behind.
It was good for investigators to confirm as they processed the crime scene. "Juni sometimes leaves french fries or a half-peeled banana back where she sits," her dad, Tom French, said. "But she swore she never had candy like that."
He identified the Ricola cough drops in the van as his.
Juni soon realized it all started with the lost key fob. "Oh no, it's my fault!" she cried.
How the van came to be unlocked and a prime target
Tom had taken Juni to a doctor's appointment that morning and handed her the key in the waiting room so she could retrieve her "Little House on the Prairie" coloring book from the van.
She returned with the coloring book but no key, which she inadvertently left in the vehicle.
They went about their day, intending to search later. Tom parked the van in the Poplars garage on Sixth Street, on the second floor on the east side, he said, two spaces from the elevator.
While teaching a crime reporting class at IU's Media School that afternoon, French got a call from an IUPD officer. His van had been discovered on the top level of the Poplars parking garage, crashed against a cement wall. All four tires had been slashed.
'We figured it out': Lessons learned still stick with first women's Little 500 champs
The investigation continues, according to the summary in police report No. 231441. "At this time, it is believed that the vehicle was stolen from its parking stall on the second level and taken to the top level and during that process the vehicle was damaged."
The report lists damage to the van at between $5,000 and $10,000.
The police towed the Honda to be processed for evidence. It eventually landed at a body shop, where it waits to be repaired.
And that key? It's nowhere to be found.
Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: The Case of the French Family's Crashed Honda Odyssey at IU
