SONORA, Calif. — The car involved in a high-speed police chase in Ceres and Modesto, which left one woman dead on Wednesday morning, was actually stolen from a family in Sonora.
"It's not right. Nobody should do that. Nobody should have to ever go through this," said Stephen Turpen, the man whose car was torn in half during the incident.
Turpen said he had no idea his car was missing until the Ceres police knocked on his front door at 4:45 a.m. Wednesday. Officers asked Turpen if anyone had permission to use his Toyota Camry.
"And I said, 'I don't have a Camry. I have an Avalon.' And she says, 'Is it black?' And I said, 'Yeah,'" he recounted.
At that point, he walked outside to check his garage.
"I went 'My god! It's gone,'" he said. "I walked back and I stood there for a few minutes. I didn't even feel the cold. I went into shock."
Then came the photos.
The photo above is what's left of his car after it was taken from Sonora, nearly 60 miles away down to Ceres.
"My car? That's my car? That used to be my car...," he said.
His car was split in two and scattered across the roadway after police said the driver led police on a four minute chase into Modesto, topping 100 MPH. They said he lost control and slammed into a tree, killing his 28-year-old passenger, Kendra Sanguinetti.
Turpen said the suspect, 24-year-old Devin Long, was a friend of his grandson's. He said he's known Long for five years.
"We fed this kid. I let him bathe here. I let him sleep here when he didn't have anywhere else to go and he does this," he said.
And he had just invited him into his home on Tuesday night to introduce his girlfriend, Sanguinetti. Police said she was wanted on multiple outstanding warrants.
"It was disturbing. I got a gut feeling in my stomach. I knew there was something wrong with the girl," he said.
Turpen believes Sanguinetti took the keys right out of his wife's purse when they weren't looking and they quietly took the car in the middle of the night.
"It's so hard to believe that somebody that you trust and treat them like your kids does that to you," he said.
Now, this disabled veteran on a fixed income is out a car which he paid $40,000 for. And it will be awhile until his insurance gets to inspect it since it's tied up in police evidence.
"I don't know what to say or do right now," he said.
Long is facing a laundry list of charges, including murder, recklessly evading a police officer, grand theft auto, driving under the influence causing a death, resisting arrest and driving on a suspended license.
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