Date goes from bad to worse

Friday, August 28, 2009

Michael P. McConnell
Daily Tribune Staff Writer

Police say man skipped out on restaurant bill, stole woman's car.

FERNDALE — A first date went from bad to worse when police say a man not only skipped out on a restaurant bill but stole his new girlfriend's car while she was still seated at the table.

A Detroit man faces trial on charges he stole his date's car after they ate and he asked her for her keys so he could get his wallet out of her vehicle.

"She gave him her keys and he went out the door," said Ferndale police Detective Sgt. Patrick Jones. "From where she was sitting she saw him get in her car and he drove off at a high rate of speed."

The woman called police from the restaurant.

Terrance Dejuan McCoy, 23, is charged with unlawfully driving away the woman's 2000 Chevrolet Impala, a five-year felony. He waived a preliminary examination Thursday in Ferndale 43rd District Court and was ordered to stand trial on the charge in Oakland County Circuit Court.

Police said McCoy stole the car April 24 shortly after he and the woman, 27, of Southfield ate at the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, 280 W. Nine Mile Road.

"It sounds like a bad date to me," Jones said. "She picked him up that night at his apartment, then he stole her car and didn't even settle up the bill for dinner."

The woman told police she also had a backpack with $300 cash inside the car, along with a laptop computer, iPod and a digital camera.

The stolen car turned up May 5 in Detroit with the radio missing.

The woman told police she met McCoy a week before she saw him drive away in her car. They first met at the Greektown Casino and she knew McCoy only as "Chris," police said.

They talked on their cell phones several times and McCoy sent her a picture of himself that she kept on her cell phone, police said.

The woman called Ferndale police immediately from the restaurant, but officers were unable to locate the woman's car, police said.

"We were able to identify him because she had a picture of him and we had his cell phone number," Jones said.

McCoy was later arrested and Ferndale police picked him up at the Wayne County Jail on July 28.

The suspect has two previous convictions for unarmed robbery in 2005 and was wanted for absconding from probation in Farmington Hills, Jones said.

He is jailed on $25,000 cash bond.