Guy can't find his truck. Turns out someone scrapped it (4 photos)

Tristyn Berto’s dream of rebuilding his grandfather’s old Chevrolet pickup truck has been literally crushed after the family heirloom was stolen and sold for scrap last week.

Berto, a 21-year-old Algoma Steel employee, says the truck — which was stored at his uncle’s property of Goetz Street — was loaded onto a flatbed by a local towing company and hauled to a scrap yard on Aug. 2.

“The person that stole it called a flatbed and gave them some story, but he didn’t have the ownership for the truck, he didn’t have the keys for the truck,” Berto told SooToday. “He didn’t have anything for the truck.”

Berto says that he didn’t know the truck was stolen until Aug. 5, when he was asked by his brother if he had removed the truck from his uncle’s property.

He immediately went to his uncle’s.

“I went down to the property and obviously the truck wasn’t there, so right away I called my uncle,” Berto said. “The first thing my uncle said is, ‘Your truck’s missing, eh?’, like kind of joking, thinking I moved it.”

“Right away I hung up and called the police and told the police it was stolen.”

Berto began searching for his truck the very next day, which happened to be the Monday of the Civic Holiday long weekend.

He eventually caught a glimpse of the front end of his truck while standing outside of the gate of a scrap dealer that same day.

“I grew up with the truck, I learned how to drive in that truck, so I know it when I see it,” Berto said. “I could see the windshield was clearly smashed, but I didn’t know if that was the person who stole it or what, but I couldn’t see the extent of the damage to the truck.”

“My uncle had a drone...he flew that in there, and took a few pictures of the truck and showed me the pictures of the truck.”

The drone photos taken by his uncle revealed that Berto’s truck was partially crushed, with extensive damage to the cab.

“Just totally destroyed, and that’s when my heart sank,” Berto said. “I practically started crying, because me and my brother, we had plans, we were in the process of rebuilding that truck.”

“It’s very sentimental to us, obviously. It’s a family heirloom.”

“It crushed me.”

“I was happy to find the truck, because I knew it wasn’t just gone,” he said. “But to see it in that condition . . . it was a low blow, for sure.”

Knowing the scrap yard was closed for the Civic Holiday, Berto went back Aug. 7 in order to reclaim his truck.

Berto says that he explained his situation to an employee, then asked to speak with the manager.

“I said, ‘It was stolen from me and it’s in the yard, and you guys destroyed it,’” Berto said.

Following the initial investigation by Sault Ste. Marie Police Service, it was revealed through surveillance footage and talks with the towing company exactly how the truck was stolen.

“The flatbed winched it — in park — and dragged it onto the flatbed," said Berto. He said the flatbed brought the truck to the scrap dealer, where it was sold.

While Berto says he thought the truck having no ownership, keys and its condition would have been red flags, he contacted the Ministry of Transportation, only to discover that no laws exist on the provincial level to prevent a vehicle that’s not licenced from being stolen and scrapped.

“If the vehicle is not licensed . . . it is up to the company’s discretion on whether they want to run a VIN (vehicle identification number) to see if it’s stolen, whether they ask for identification, whether they ask for an ownership, or whether they ask for the keys to the vehicle,” Berto said. “There’s no laws in place to hold these companies accountable for buying these stolen vehicles and destroying them.”

While pawn shops are required under bylaw to keep records when purchasing goods that might be stolen, there is no such onus on scrap dealers, said Const. Sonny Spina, of the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service.

“Right now, there’s nothing that makes (scrap dealers) obligated to look for ownership,” Spina told SooToday.

However, since this investigation started, Spina said all local scrap dealers have agreed to make the effort to confirm the identity of those selling scrap and confirm lawful ownership.

"Hopefully this new procedure they adopt puts an end to that kind of stuff," said Spina.

Berto said he was told by police that this is the third time they have seen a similar situation.

Berto says that his grandfather’s truck has been in the family since 1994.

He has vivid memories of sitting on his father’s lap, with his hands on the steering wheel, cruising down their camp road.

Berto had been planning to restore the pickup truck back to its original factory specifications and present to his grandfather on his 80th birthday, which is three years away.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to have that moment with my grandfather now, where he walks out and sees his truck rebuilt, and sees it brand new,” Berto said. “He loved that truck, he talks about it all the time.”

“They took that from me, and I don’t want that to happen to anybody else.”

Berto says he now wants to find a way to change the provincial laws surrounding the purchase of vehicles for scrap.

In the meantime, he’s determined to see his restoration project through to the end, even if the prognosis doesn’t look good. He says further damage was done to the truck when it was returned to him.

“I work hard for my money, and I’ve been doing my best to save so I could have this happen,” Berto said. “I would like to see my truck restored, so that I could at least get that moment with my grandfather.”

— with files from Michael Purvis