Rebecca Harrison’s Kia Sportage vanished from her Austin driveway in the middle of the night—again. But when the stolen car turned up again, it wasn’t just wrecked. It was full of junk that wasn’t hers: men’s underwear, a backpack, a laptop, and a notebook. And that notebook? Let’s just say it looked more like a prep sheet for future crimes than someone’s to-do list.

Inside the stolen car: notes, neighborhoods, and millionaire manifestation

Police found Harrison’s stolen car with extensive damage. “They had like, ripped the handle off, thrown it to the side,” she said. “There’s steering column damage. The bag of sun chips are not mine, so they must have gotten hungry with all the theft.” Some of the stuff left behind that made her uneasy.

“There were lots of items left in the vehicle, and some were not mine,” Harrison said. She found men’s clothing, a laptop, and most notably, a handwritten notebook.

That notebook listed neighborhoods such as Georgetown, Cedar Park, Lago Vista, Manor, and Buda. It had a column labeled “opportunity.” There was another creepy list—car models with price tags next to them. And then there was the weirdest page of all: the same sentence scribbled over and over again—“I enjoy making twenty-five-thousand dollars a month in my real estate career.”

Is this penmanship practice? The motivational ramblings of a broke real estate bro? Or evidence of someone scoping out their next hustle?

“This seems premeditated,” Harrison said. “It seems like maybe there’s kind of an organized system around how they’re finding cars to steal.”

She told police the items weren’t hers. But so far? “Nobody’s taking a look at it, except for me,” she said. And that might be the problem.

Recovered cars often come with the thief’s trash—and maybe clues

As I previously wrote, it’s shockingly common for stolen cars to come back stuffed with someone else’s junk. When police don’t know what was inside the vehicle before the theft, they often just hand it back to the owner and move on. But Harrison’s case raises a fair point: what if that junk isn’t just trash?

APD says every case is unique. But with the rise in Kia and Hyundai thefts, especially tied to a social media trend, it’s fair to ask if they’re doing enough. “My hope is that the police department would take stuff like this more seriously,” Harrison said. Searching the thief’s laptop could uncover a wealth of information.

In the end, this might just be another unfortunate car theft in Austin’s crime wave. Or it could be a missed chance to stop the next one. See the latest coverage in the video embedded below: