Thieves steal 6 expensive cars from Kentucky dealership

SOMERSET, Ky. (WKYT/Gray News) - Six brand-new Dodge Challenger Hellcats were stolen from a Kentucky dealership.

It happened at about 2 a.m. Tuesday at the Don Franklin Chrysler Dodge Jeep in Somerset.

According to Adam Bryant, the dealership’s manager, the thieves broke into the showroom and stole four of the vehicles from there. The keys were inside those vehicles.

“Really just heartbreaking. It’s $600,000 worth of cars gone. You know, that’s a lot of money. A pretty big deal,” Bryant said.

The other two vehicles were stolen outside on the lot. The manager says the thieves found the keys to those two vehicles inside the dealership building.

“They came in through the rear garage door. They had some kind of idea of how our security system worked it looked like,” Bryant said.

Bryant believes it took at least seven people 40 seconds to drive off with all six Hellcats, each worth around $95,000.

“And they were gone. Once they tripped the alarm, it takes 60 seconds before it starts alerting. They were gone 20 seconds before the alarm started to go off. The response time of the police was like three minutes. It was really good,” Bryant said.

Five of the vehicles were later recovered.

One was found on the side of a parkway and appeared to have run out of gas. Two others were found in other locations in Kentucky. One was found in Tenessee and another in Alabama.

The sixth vehicle hasn’t been found yet.

“We have an idea of where the last one is,” Bryant said. “It looks like they damaged the GPS on it, but it’s picking up and seems like it’s in Alabama. We’ve been working with law enforcement there and they’ve been helping us track it. But that’s really all you can do. You’ve just got to go on with business.”

Bryant says one of the recovered Hellcats is likely a total loss. Two of them had no damage. He doesn’t know the conditions of the other two that were found.

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