A San Bernardino County family found themselves in dire straits after a fire destroyed a U-Haul truck holding all their possessions in what authorities suspect was an attempted theft gone wrong.
The incident occurred early Feb. 29 outside an apartment complex in Hesperia, where the family’s U-Haul had been parked, ABC7 reported.
“Inside the U-Haul were all of our belongings. Clothes, shoes, furniture, our beds. Everything you could think of was in there,” Iman Metoyer, a mother of six, told the TV station.
Ms. Metoyer told ABC7 that she suspects the perpetrators initially tried to steal the U-Haul. When their attempts failed, they resorted to siphoning gas from the vehicle’s tank, resulting in an explosion and fire.
“They used an electric drill to drill a hole into it, which caused, I guess, a spark that made the whole thing burst into flames,” she recounted.
Following the incident, a GoFundMe page was created by Kaniya Lewis, Ms. Metoyer’s mother.
Video footage indicates that shortly after 2 a.m. Thursday, the truck was engulfed in flames, Ms. Lewis said.
Several images on the page depicted the burnt remnants of the truck, with parts of its wall completely melted and exposed. According to Ms. Lewis, the truck was loaded during the day on Wednesday and parked in front of her daughter’s apartment complex overnight.
A damage total was not immediately available.
Ms. Metoyer’s father, Rickie, described the incident as tragic, lamenting, “We don’t have anything anymore. Everything that we had is gone,” ABC7 reported.
Investigators from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, as reported by the news outlet, discovered evidence of the attempted crime near the burned-out U-Haul.
“There were remnants of a red gas can located under the vehicle, and there was a hole drilled in the gas tank of the U-Haul truck,” Gloria Huerta from the department told ABC7. “As of now, we have not identified any suspects, and our investigation is ongoing.”
