Luxury car crime spree caught on tape

AUSTIN (KXAN) - A crime spree suspect who is still on the run seemed to have a taste for expensive cars.

Early Saturday morning, police say a man broke into the locked parking lot at Continental Collision Center on North Lamar.

He got into the driver's seat of a two door Mercedes and went full speed through the locked gate and straight into the living room of a home across the street.

"It was 5:40 in the morning. We were asleep when we heard this loud crash," said Paul Bowland. "I thought a drunk driver or somebody hit the house."

The car came within four feet of where he was sleeping. Bowland had a surveillance camera pointed toward the driveway and captured this video he posted on YouTube.

In the video, pieces of the fence go flying and 15 seconds later the driver can be seen in top right hand corner of the screen. He assesses the damage and then starts running.

His next stop was the Yellow Rose where he encountered more cameras.

"The video shows him coming up the stairs here. He tried to turn around and get in the door here and he looked square in the camera right there," said Jon Persinger as he points to the surveillance camera above the front door.

After the man tries to open the locked front door, the video shows him walking over to Persinger's truck. He tries to get in and then walks to the business next door.

Service King employees say he got a little smarter this time. He used one customer's car to bust through the locked gate, and then broke into a building and drove off with another customer's black BMW.

It was a 1996 328i with license plate number BC6D032.

Back at Bowland's house, he and his father are reeling from the loss of sentimental items and trying to make repairs. The car crashed into boxes filled with memorabilia that was just pulled out of Paul's mother's home who was just moved to a retirement center.

They are staying in a motel for now until power is restored, and sure hope police find the suspect soon.

"Nobody was killed on this so I'm sure there are other issues the police are working on," said Bowland. "But if this guy's brave enough to do this, what else is he going to do?"

Austin police would like to hear from anyone with information on the case.