Woman who bought stolen car gets it back

NORTH BRANFORD, Conn. (WTNH) -- A car was reported stolen, bought, sold again, and then taken away from it's most recent owner.

It's a bizarre story News 8 first reported last week.

A 20 year-old North Branford woman had no idea why police came to her home and took her car.

Tuesday, the car was returned to Brittany Boyers. The City of New Haven's Corporate Counsel agreed that she is the owner and that the dealer who sold her the car did everything legally, even contacting the lien holder who didn't respond.

The whole messed stemmed from a clerical error in May 2011.

The car was taken away almost a month ago, but now Boyers is excited to get back behind the wheel.

"I'm just so excited," she said. "I couldn't believe it when he called me."

That call was from New Haven Police Tuesday morning.

"Every day I just kept getting different answers and I figured it would take months and months until I get it back, or I'm not going to get it back," Boyers said. "I was just getting so frustrated I couldn't deal with it anymore."

So, she turned to News 8. We did some digging and found out what went wrong after purchasing the car from RJ Automotive.

The car was first reported stolen in late May of 2011, but the City of New Haven says an employee didn't accurately record it.

Exactly one month later, the car turned up at the Branford Police Department. RJ Shore Automotive went back and checked their paperwork and the police asked them to tow it. The police report confirms that.

Branford Police got the car when they pulled it over because it had the wrong plates on it. The driver was arrested. Police say there were no signs of the car being stolen, because of the clerical error in New Haven.

RJ Shore was able to legally buy the car and sell it to Boyers this January.

Six days later, the car was reported stolen. That's eight months after the fact. The original owner stopped by the New Haven Police.

Since being the new owner, Boyers was pulled over once in Wallingford, then had the car taken from her.

She thought she was never getting it back.

"I went to the DMV, returned my plates, cancelled my insurance," Boyers said. "I'm glad I called you guys and you were able to help me and RJ Shore, they had nothing to do with it. They're a good dealership and it wasn't their fault."

Boyers immediately went to the DMV to get those plates and officially put this stressful time behind her. The City of New Haven thanks the police department for their thorough investigation and also RJ Shore for their cooperation.