KOSCIUSKO — Two men were recently arrested after police say they stole a vehicle that the owner had left running to warm up.

Issac Adam Finchum, 23, 614 Lower Bogard Road, Newport, Tenn., is being charged with theft, a level 6 felony, and operating a motor vehicle having never received a license, a class C misdemeanor.

 Thomas Dewayne Hope, 24, 2117 Chestnut St., Gadsden, Ala., is being charged with theft, a level 6 felony.

On Jan. 14, an officer with the Warsaw Police Department responded to an auto theft complaint. The officer was able to locate the stolen vehicle on Detroit Street and conducted a traffic stop. Finchum was identified as the driver of the stolen vehicle and Hope was the passenger.

The officer spoke with the owner of the vehicle who advised she started her vehicle to warm it up before closing. According to the affidavit of probable cause, she noticed two male subjects looking at her car. The male subject later identified as Finchum purchased a cigar, walked away and got in her car. The vehicle owner confronted Finchum as he drove away and picked up Hope.

Finchum admitted to the officer that he had been in Warsaw since Jan. 10, as part of a rehabilitation program for drug addiction. He got homesick and he and Hope, who was in the same facility, decided they would go home to Tennesee. Finchum advised that he noticed the vehicle was running so he got into the vehicle and drove away. He further advised that Hope and he did not have a vehicle at the facility and that he had never held a driver’s license in any state.

While being booked into the Kosciusko County Jail, Hope told Finchum, “What a crazy night, you took that lady’s car and said to me, ‘get in, get in, get in,’ so I jumped in and now we are in jail.”