A movie prop maker who turned her Kia Soul into a “Ghostbusters”-themed car during the pandemic found her version of the Ecto-1 was stolen on Monday afternoon.
Erica Nese told KTLA that someone attempted to break into her car last week by putting a screwdriver in the keyhole.
She was going to the mechanic to get the car fixed on Monday when she went down to the parking garage underneath her Silver Lake apartment building; however, her lime green “Ecto Kia” was nowhere to be found.
“It’s really beautiful…it’s a work of art [that] took me about four or five years,” she said following the theft. “But it’s looking very pretty, and it’s not done yet, so I just want the car back so I can keep working on it. It’s like my child.”
On Tuesday afternoon, one of Nese’s neighbors was driving around and suddenly spotted the lime green car parked in front of Camino Nuevo Charter Academy in Westlake.
She called Nese who rushed over to the vehicle to confirm the car was indeed hers. Video of the car showed the thieves had stripped all of its custom roof add-ons. The exterior stickers were mostly scratched off as well.
Nese said her personal belongings inside were stolen by the suspects.
When her car was initially taken, other cars in the parking garage had also been broken into, Nese said. Her apartment complex’s garage has a locked gate and requires a code to enter, yet that wasn’t enough to deter the thief.
No description of a suspect has been released as Nese works on filing a police report.
Nancy Fontan and Patrick Kightlinger contributed to this report.