Audio By Carbonatix

Imagine you’re driving down an empty highway in rural Pennsylvania late one night. In the dark you spot a bizarre object looming by the roadside. You see multiple cars tipped over on the road. In the ditch is the skeletal metal structure of a crashed car-carrier trailer, and the attached semi truck. You don’t see anyone at the scene so you continue driving. A mile away there’s a man running for the nearest exit.

This is one bizarre crime story. And it promises to only get stranger as more details emerge.

Pennsylvania state police got calls about this crash on I-83 in the wee hours of Monday morning. A witness watched the semi truck and trailer crash down the embankment, spilling cars along the way. A man climbed out of the truck’s door and tried to escape. So police went to investigate and picked up the driver fleeing on foot. Ramon Vasquez-Fajardo (39) refused to cooperate or give his name. He must have forgotten he had a New Jersey driver’s license and another ID from the Dominican Republic in his pocket.

The semi truck driver who crashed the car carrier

What he did not have was the commercial driver’s license which you need to operate a semi truck. That might have explained why he was fleeing the scene of the crash. Or drove into the ditch in the first place. But police decided to investigate further. They ran the truck and trailer’s plates and found both were from a car lot in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The next morning they found the truck and trailer’s owner who said he didn’t have any rigs stolen. But then he went to double check and admitted that he did indeed have a truck and trailer he wanted to report as stolen.

So did this thief nab a car carrier full of vehicles? Not quite. The police ran the plates of the cars and found multiple ones had also been stolen. A Dodge Durango from the truck had been reported stolen in New Jersey.

At seven AM authorities warned drivers they were still clearing the cars out of one travel lane, but planned to have the road fully open by eight AM. Vasquez-Fajardo faces three felony charges of receiving stolen property as well as reckless driving and driving without a CDL. He’s also in trouble for leaving the scene, in the form of charges of accidents involving damage to unattended vehicle or property. His bail is set at $50,000. It will be interesting to see what other details on this case emerge before his preliminary hearing on June 16th.