It was a calm, rainy night in Austin, Texas. One usually sleepy street was quiet… too quiet. Tomfoolery was afoot. Thieves had set their sights on what appeared to be the perfect lick. An all black Dodge Ram TRX ripe for the picking. 

Little did they know that this was the prized possession of the greatest grappler on planet Earth, Gordon Ryan. By stealing that car, they had set off a chain of reactions that no small scale swindler could be prepared for.

Before we get into the details, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Detective Sokoli D. Duggerton III; the D stands for Detective. You could say I was born for this. I’ve been retired from social media detective work now for years, but Lord forgive me because I am back to my old ways.

I am going to recap everything we know from the saga of Gordon Ryan’s missing car, and then I might just add my own two cents on who I think the suspects might be. And when Detective Sokoli Detective Duggerton III shoots, he don’t miss.

Let’s start with the facts we know. 

According to Gordon’s original post announcing that his truck was stolen, the burglar’s struck at 3:30AM on Thursday, Feb. 8. I know you can’t see me, but imagine me pinning a big piece of paper on a wall with some red string going to it.

Gordon noted that in addition to stealing his truck the thieves also bagged some guns and other items from his neighbor’s cars. Gordon mentioned that he also had copious amounts of ammunition and a couple of knives from John Danaher in the truck. If you are familiar with New Wave, then you know a knife is a sacred gift from Danaher. I would have guessed that as soon as a Danaher knife had touched the hand of someone it was not intended for, Danaher himself would awake in the night and sit directly up in bed knowing that there was a disturbance in the force, but I digress. 

Gordon issued a $5k reward for anyone who could provide legitimate information that lead to the return of his truck. Sadly, I was still in retirement enjoying Shirley Temples at my favorite local jazz club, listening to a bit of Duke Silver or I would have cashed in on this. Now let’s get back to business.

The internet world receive the next update from Gordon on Saturday evening. Much to the chagrin of car thieves and haters everywhere, The King sat perched on his chariot once again. 

Gordon didn’t give much context as to how he was able to get his truck back in this post, but he did heave warning to bad apples everywhere:

“There's a lesson to be learned here. Well, really two. 1- I have friends and eyes EVERYWHERE. 2- Don't ever think you can fuck with me and get away with it.”

Gordon followed up this post sixteen hours later and gleaned more information on how he was able to get his rig back.

You can read the full post for all of the nitty gritty, but here is a quick synopsis. 

Gordon noted in his post that he was immediately contacted by law enforcement officers from around the country and had “the entire state of TX looking for this truck.” 

Using built in trackers, the police were able to identify where the truck was and Gordon said that “within two days, we had it in possession.”

It appears that there was no physical damage to the outside of the truck, but there was some damage to the interior. The thieves removed the dash screen in an attempt to remove the tracker and the VIN plaque was removed. Gordon also mentioned that most of his possessions were still in the truck. 

It appears the thieves also used Gordon’s credit card to ball out on thirty dollars worth of Whataburger. 

—If I’m being honest, fair play on that move. Assuming that this was a two man job, I think a thirty dollar Whataburger tab is reasonable. They could have easily opted to Whatasize the fries, snag some extra sides, and run up that bill in a hurry. Game respects game.

Now let’s dive into the suspected suspects. After I found out that the truck had no physical damage on the outside, which means no forced entry, I had a suspicion. So I did what anyone does when they want to be bombarded with information quickly so that they can write a blog and pretend they know more than they do, I went to the public library. 

Just kidding; I hit the google machine.

I was already familiar with the TikTok trend referred to as the ‘Kia Boyz.’ If you don’t know, the Kia Boyz started stealing specific models of Kia cars because of how easily they could be stolen and posting it on TikTok. I’m not going to go into details on it because I don’t really want to give anymore clout to these dudes, if you steal cars for the sake of making a TikTok you are a big time dork. Just hit the renegade like the rest of us. 

And if you do have to steal a car, it should only be because you just found out that Hector is going to be running three Honda Civics with spoon engines and just put in an order at Harry’s for t66 turbos with nos and a motec exhaust system. Can’t compete with that.

I learned from my research that Dodge trucks have become a new target for the clout chasers. It seems that reprogramming a fob mixed with some other stuff can gain you access to the trucks. Which aligns with how there was no physical damage.

Gordon has said that he will have some more content coming soon about the saga of his stolen truck, so keep an eye on his Instagram for more updates. As for me, I am going back into retirement.

On behalf of the full team here at Detective Sokoli D. Duggerton III Detective Services, we are glad that Gordon was able to get his truck back. It obviously sucks to lose anything of value and it is good to see the bad guys get got.