LOS ANGELES – Already reeling from the loss of a job, a California woman left the home where she celebrated Thanksgiving to find her car mangled and defaced.
Surveillance video later revealed the cause – a passerby had spent hours scratching, puncturing and dismantling Stacy Omelianoff's vehicle.
Omelianoff parked her car in front of a friend's house on Westmoreland Avenue in Los Angeles' Koreatown Thanksgiving night to celebrate the holiday with loved ones.
The next morning, she was informed that the police were called with reports of a woman jumping on her vehicle and carving into the car all night with a pipe, windshield wiper and a piece of wood.
The woman can be seen in surveillance video attacking the car beginning around 3 a.m., continuing until well into the morning.
"It's totaled," Omelianoff told KTLA.
The woman also flattened the car's tires and pulled the grill out of the vehicle, Omelianoff said.
"I paid $511 to fix my engine on the 15th and I was able to get around to come celebrate Thanksgiving ... and this is what I get. Thank God for everything I had and this is what I got the next day. This is what I get for thanking God for everything I had," Omelianoff told KTLA before breaking down in tears.
Omelianoff said she lost her job Nov. 5 and does not have insurance to cover the damage to the vehicle, nor can she afford to have it towed away.
A relative set up a GoFundMe page to help her. As of Tuesday evening, people had donated nearly $10,000.
The attacker was placed on a psychiatric hold but had not been arrested, Sgt. Gamble of the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division told KTLA on Sunday.
Detectives planned to follow up with the victim, Gamble said.
