 "Photo: Steve Bodnar")
 "Photo: Steve Bodnar")
Three cars have been stolen from the student parking lots in the past two months at the University of New Hampshire. Since then, university police have recovered only one of the stolen vehicles in an ongoing investigation. The lone car found was almost completely submerged in the Merrimack River outside Merrimac, Mass., and was spotted by a family walking along the riverbank.
Two of the stolen vehicles were Honda Civics; the first was reported on Feb. 6 from the West Edge parking lot and the second was taken on March 28 from the Woodside parking lot. The other car, a Toyota Camry, was stolen on March 27 in the middle of the day from the G Lot, located across from Putnam Hall and the UNH greenhouses.
The quick succession of the thefts has taken the police by surprise and they have sent out a campus-wide alert to all students through e-mail.
"I can't even remember a car being stolen in the past 15 years from the university campus," said Paul Dean, the deputy chief of the UNH Police Department. "Losing three in roughly a 60-day period is definitely an anomaly."
To stop car crimes from continuing, Dean said that patrols have increased all around campus. He suggested that students try to park in well-lit areas and that they take valued items out of their vehicles.
"Our police are trying to be as vigilant as they can," Dean said. "We can't be everywhere, though."
Adding to the mystery, Aaron Woods' car, the first Honda Civic that was reported stolen, appeared to be towed away by a wrecker judging by the tow tracks that were visible in the recently fallen snow. After suggestions from the police, Woods and his family have contacted more than 30 towing companies in the area, none of which have any record of towing his car.
Woods, a sophomore at UNH, said that he had locked his car and parked it at the back corner of the West Edge lot on Sunday, Feb. 3. Upon returning to it on Wednesday, Feb. 6, however, he found that the vehicle was gone, including the expensive sound equipment he had inside. The license plates were later found alongside a road in Newmarket, but Woods suspects that the car ended up in Boston, being broken down to sell individual parts.
Without theft insurance, Woods has no way of being compensated for the car and now personally suggests that everyone buy that particular insurance. He also feels like the university should be doing more to make students' cars safer.
"I would like to see UNH take the initiative to secure their parking lots a little better," said Woods. "Either with cameras throughout the lots or with gates that require ID card swipes."
Presently, anyone can enter the parking lots on campus. Both the UNH Police Department and the Durham Police Department are often on patrol.
Dirk Timmons, director of UNH Transportation Services, said that transportation personnel are also trained to drive through the remote parking lots in their routes and contact the police through dispatch if they observe any strange activity.
"We try to increase our awareness and communicate to the staff what's happening on campus." Timmons said. "We'd love to have surveillance cameras but that's a large financial obligation."
The university police are taking each situation "very seriously," according to Dean, and are stepping up their efforts to track down the two remaining cars.
Additional information on each specific case can be found on the UNH Police Department's website, www.unh.edu/upd, through the links to campus alerts and the public log of police activity. If anyone has any information regarding these incidents, they are urged to call the UNH Police Department at (603) 862-1427.
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