Staff Report

WARSAW — A Plymouth woman is facing several charges after she stole and crashed a Tesla in Mentone.

Anja G. Houin, 20, 217 Elliott St., Plymouth, is facing one count of burglary, a Level 4 felony; and two felony counts of theft, one a Level 5 and the other a Level 6.

Anja G. Houin

The incident happened on Tuesday, Aug. 9.

According to a probable cause affidavit, at around 1:50 p.m., a Mentone police officer was dispatched to North Broadway Street in Mentone, in reference to vehicle theft.

The officer met with a man who said that the owner of the stolen vehicle, which was a Tesla, asked him to check on it. The owner had received a notification from the Tesla that its doors had been opened.

The man went to check on the car and found Houin was taking items from the vehicle’s owner’s home in Mentone and putting them in the Tesla.

The man asked Houin what she was doing. Houin said she was the daughter of the owner of the vehicle, but the man knew that she wasn’t.

She asked the man if he wanted to ride in the vehicle. He refused, and Houin got in the vehicle and drove away quickly.

The officer contacted the owner of the Tesla, who said he wasn’t home when he got the notification that his vehicle had been unlocked. The owner checked security cameras and saw Houin enter his home and take his Tesla.

The owner was also able to use his phone to see the current location of the Tesla, near a treatment pond in Mentone.

The officer traveled to the location and found that the Tesla was on its side, crashed into a wooded area.

The officer found Houin in the driver’s seat, secured by a seat belt. She didn’t respond to him. EMS personnel arrived, and Houin was removed from the vehicle.

She was taken to Lutheran Hospital by helicopter.

The Tesla was towed, and the owner looked in it. He said a bag of his clothes and other items in the vehicle weren’t placed there by him. The owner took the items and left the scene.

While the vehicle was towed, the owner called the officer and said approximately $90,000 in cash stored in Beacon bank envelopes was missing from his home.

The officer went to the Tesla owner’s home and found a blue Ford Escape that Houin had left there. The Escape was towed.

The officer spoke with the Tesla’s owner. He said it looked as if Houin made 8-10 piles of belongings inside the home.

The owner found an iPhone, which ended up belonging to Houin.

The officer went to Fort Wayne to speak with Houin at the hospital. She told him she didn’t remember the incident or why she was in the hospital.

The owner later said he found one of the missing cash envelopes by one of the doorways in his home. He said the current amount missing from the residence was in excess of $50,000.

Houin was booked into the Kosciusko County Jail on Sept. 28 on a $15,250 surety and cash bond.