Image Credit: Contributed / Country Auto

By James Peters

Country Auto Fire

Country Auto offers $5,000 reward for arson information; new video shows getaway vehicle

Oct 28, 2019 | 9:07 AM

KAMLOOPS — The owners of Country Auto on Eighth Street are offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the capture and conviction of the arsonists who set fire to vehicles on their lot last week — and the dealership is releasing new surveillance footage in an attempt to collar the criminals.

WATCH: Video from a home across Eighth Street, added to video from Country Auto (Video Credit: Contributed / Country Auto)

Early Friday morning, fire heavily damaged three pickup trucks on the lot. A pair of suspects could be seen on the dealership’s surveillance cameras, lighting the fire and then running from the scene.

Controller Karen Howarth says new footage from a home located across the street, behind Cornerstone Baptist Church, appears to show one of the suspects arriving and departing in a getaway vehicle.

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“Saturday morning, an individual came in with some video footage from his home, showing that there was a car in the alleyway behind the church across the (Eighth Street) from us — a vehicle sitting there at five minutes to six, waiting and idling,” said Howarth. “Clearly, it’s captured that the individual who set the fire ran over the church parking lot, into the back and jumped into this vehicle and off they went.”

This piece of footage adds to the initial footage from the dealership, which showed the arsonists in the act.

“The surveillance that CFJC aired on Friday very, very clearly depicted two individuals — one walking on our side of the street, coming up with a backpack,” said Howarth. “The other fellow came from the Dairy Queen side, leaped over the meridian with the jerry can in his hand, set the fire, leaped back over Eighth Street, and that’s when he went behind the church to the getaway car.”

None of the three most damaged trucks can be salvaged, and over the weekend the dealership discovered more damage.

“Once the vehicles were moved out of here on Friday afternoon, ICBC needed to be called. [We] made claims for each vehicle, a total write-off on all three of them,” said Howarth. “We have a fourth vehicle that sustained heat damage, so that was a claim I had to open up this morning as well.”

Howarth says employees of the dealership are still frustrated by the wanton act of vandalism and don’t know why Country Auto was targeted.

“We deal with a fair bit of vandalism, as most businesses around this area do. This was probably the worst,” said Howarth. “But no, I have no idea.”

Anyone with information on the crime is asked to call Kamloops RCMP at (250) 828-3000 or Crime Stoppers at 1 (800) 222-8477.