SPOKANE, Wash. – Edie Shepard, a Spokane South Hill resident, is heartbroken after her rusty, red True Value wagon was stolen from her front yard this week.
She claimed that the wagon, while not fiscally valuable, symbolized her close friendship with a woman she knew from her days as a teacher in West Seattle.
Shepard came into possession of the wagon when Janet Osborn, another teacher at the school she worked at, gave it to her.
“She would load up all the lunches in her little red wagon and bring them to the cafeteria every day…When we moved from that building, I helped her pack. The red wagon was kind of retired and she asked me if I would like it for my kids,” Shepard said. “We had it for many years. It was just the little red wagon that my two boys would pull each other around in.”
Osborn died in 2017 from stomach cancer, which is why Shepard was devastated when she realized the wagon was stolen.
“It broke all our hearts. It was a lot. And I know it’s a silly little wagon, and it’s just a possession. It was something she gave to us. And it was hard seeing it taken away,” Shepard said.
She has had items stolen from her front yard before, and she even had blankets stolen from her car.
Porch pirating and having items with seemingly no fiscal value stolen off a front yard has become common in cities like Spokane.
According to the Mayo Clinic, Kleptomania is a mental health disorder that involves being repeatedly unable to resist urges to steal items that one generally does not need.
For a kleptomaniac, stealing involves a mix of pleasure, thrill and relief. But, after the act, it might be followed by a sense of guilt or remorse.
Shepard believes that in Spokane, theft like this could also just boil down to desperation.
“I think it’s an underlying lack of society’s care for those who need it. And those who don’t get what they need will go about getting those things in really destructive ways…It’s just such a wider, larger issue than we can solve,” Shepard said.
She is willing to provide a reward to anyone who can return her beloved red wagon.
