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COURTESY HAWAII NEWS NOW
Jones' car.
One minute, Jennifer Jones was stopping to help the victims of a one-vehicle crash she witnessed while driving on a Honolulu freeway. The next, she was a victim herself, after she says the driver of the wrecked SUV jumped into her car and sped off, leaving Jones on the side of the road with one of his injured passengers.
Jones works part-time selling cosmetics and was on her way home from a Super Bowl-themed makeup event Sunday when the sport utility vehicle ahead of her started swerving erratically on the H-1 freeway. The SUV then crashed head-on into a concrete median.
Jones pulled up in front of the SUV, left the keys in the ignition and rushed to a bloodied woman hanging out of the passenger side.
Soon, a man appeared and took off in her Mazda Miata.
"He burned rubber and screeched right out of there," Jones, 39, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I just assumed he was another guy who stopped on the side of the road and saw an opportunity and took it."
In the Miata were Jones’ phone, purse and high heels.
"I was barefoot in a black cocktail dress on the side of the road," she recalled, adding she also had Seattle Seahawks makeup on her face.
Things got even more confounding when police arrived and handcuffed another man who had been in the SUV. Jones said an officer told her the man who took her car had been driving the SUV and that all three were suspected of stealing the SUV.
Police spokeswoman Teresa Bell confirmed a 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of stealing the SUV. She said police are looking for another man and that the investigation into the theft of Jones’ car is ongoing.
Jones said the injured woman had told her she met the men while hitchhiking and that she was struggling with them over a knife when the vehicle crashed. But Jones said police later told her that story was bogus.
Police drove Jones home, where she later remembered she recently had installed an app to track to her phone. She got on her computer and saw that it was at a location less than a mile from the crash site. So she called police.
Authorities found the car, but Jones said items were missing including her purse, the phone and a large parka she wears for her other job as an ice-skating coach. Police later located her purse and phone, but the coat is missing — which she finds odd considering Honolulu’s climate.
"I’ve been through so much stress, all I can do is laugh at this point," she said. "This is like a plot Hawaii Five-0 would reject."
