MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Another family has come forward claiming the Memphis police impound lot mistakenly auctioned off their vehicle.
WREG reported Tuesday about a man whose SUV was impounded because he was a victim in a shooting, and his car was sold. The latest victims want to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.
The Kelly family lost their son in October, and the car that was supposed to be on hold for investigation was sold in December. They said the mix-up cost them closure.
“Losing parents I thought was the worst thing in the world, but when you lose a child, there’s no comparison,” Gerald Kelly Sr. said. “You just can’t close it.”
His son, Gerald Kelly Jr. died in a car crash in October.
“He was killed instantly,” Kelly Sr. said.
While it may seem minor to most, the Kelly family hoped to collect their son’s belongings out of his crushed car to being some kind of peace. But because of the mix-up, that never happened.
They never got the things left in the car because the family was told they couldn’t due to a hold on the car pending investigation.
“Police department said there was a hold,” Kelly Sr. said. “Lot says there wasn’t a hold.”
Once Kelly Sr. finally got the okay from police to pick up the items, the car was gone, sold to the highest bidder in an auction.
Kelly Sr. reached out to us after seeing another WREG story about a shooting victim upset about a similar mix-up. As it turns out, both of those cars were sold only a day apart in December.
“It was like opening the wound again,” Kelly Sr. said. “How many other people has it happened to?”
In the first case, MPD admitted to the mix-up, but Dewayne Dodson didn’t think they did enough to make it right. The Kelly family still doesn’t have any solutions.
“Someone is dropping the ball, but everyone wants to point the fingers at each other,” Kelly Sr. said.
WREG reached out to MPD to find out if they plan on making changes to keep things like this from happening in the future.
The woman who purchased Dodson’s SUV at the auction reached out to WREG after the story and wants to get his car back to him. We will keep you updated on that part of the story.
