Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/19/dead-man-sat-in-a-truck-for-8.html
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Did nobody ticket the truck in all that time? 8 months of repeated non-payment of fees/fines should have been picked up at some point.
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The postmortem should prove interesting.
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I’m unclear why the family didn’t try checking the airport themselves… If I knew where my family was last supposed to be, even if the police said they “didn’t see the vehicle” I would have gone and looked myself eventually, probably within a day or two tops. Am I alone in that line of thinking?
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I think it probably depends on the lot to a degree. If they’re in long-term, you don’t pay until you leave, right? So it wouldn’t be “non-payment” because you never left. Of course, why on earth would the police have not noticed a car sitting there for 8mo. shrug
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At that lot you pay via toll booth as you leave. They don’t keep track of cars in the lot.
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No, and we can only assume that he was at best marginally liked by said family.
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It’s probably one of those parking lots where you take a ticket on the way in and pay on the way out. There’s no accounting for any vehicle in there until they leave. It would have been just another nondescript vehicle out of thousands.
At the local airport, they scan the license plates of the parked cars overnight so that people don’t pull the “I lost my ticket” gambit to pay for only one day.
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In all that time, I am sure there were many:
“Honey, what’s that smell?”
“Ugh, yeah, but look we’ve gotta catch our flight!”
“We’ll tell someone if we see them.”
And
“What’s that smell?”
“God, we’ve had a long flight. They’ll figure it out. Let’s go home!”
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Imagine it’s your job to patrol around a parking lot with literally thousands of cars a few times a day. Will you actually take note of the fact that a car is always there when so many come and go? It was just another pickup truck, it probably doesn’t stand out. Also, those lots are pretty big, and it’s quite possible it was parked off in the corner and the patrols maybe don’t hit every section of the lot every day as they don’t really need to.
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So, how it would work at O’Hare is they wouldn’t leave him a ticket for being there too long.
But if his plate sticker expires, the Chicago Parking Enforcers would start writing him tickets. I’m told this is illegal but it’s the main way the city fills its coffers. I don’t think KCI does this, because they don’t suck.
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I’ve driven to that airport and used those parking lots more than once this year. I travel a fair bit for work and it has to be one of the most poorly designed parking arrangements I’ve encountered.
And yet, the terminals are worse. They are long arced hallways with many doors, corresponding to gates on the other side of the hall. Problem is, they had to bisect the whole darned thing after 9/11 and add in several smaller security screening areas. That is a plus because there isn’t often a single long line anywhere, but if you’re changing planes, you probably have to exit and reenter, which is a huge PITA. Thankfully, it’s the end of the trip for me if I am going through there (plus a long drive, of course). I prefer to go to closer airports if I can, but sometimes MCI is the best option.
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Kansas City in the news again!
I saw this in the news. They found another lady in a mall parking lot the same day, but she had only been there a few hours.
Yeah, changing planes - especially if you used a different airline and/or have to goto a different terminal, is a PITA.
I believe they are in the planning stage of redoing it. They have radio ads about a new terminal with out tax money.
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Read about this yesterday elsewhere and i find it difficult that other people parking nearby did not notice a dead person in that truck for 8 months.
It’s pretty amazing at how many people are just bad at what they do. Mistakes happen, but it’d be nice if missing person reports were met with a little more diligence.
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I actually like MCI if I’m getting dropped off or take a shuttle. You’re pretty much right at your gate.
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i frequently see cars parked at our local airport that clearly have been there a long, long time: they are covered in dirt, like they’ve been through a season or three, and nobody seems to care.
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I actually like the layout of that airport. You can make it from the plane to the curb in literally two minutes. I hate the airports that require a train ride from security to the gate.
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Hmm, could this be an easy way to abandon a vehicle? File off the VIN, yank the plates and walk away?
In fact, maybe this guy chose this location for that reason – perhaps he didn’t want to be found.
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