Shop Owner Tracks Down Location Of Stolen Truck With GPS

Cocke County deputies responded to Grooms Auto on Highway 73 this week about a missing truck. The truck, a white 2016 Ford F350 Super Duty 4-door flatbed truck, was owned by the Gordon Company out of Thomasville, NC and had been left at Grooms for repairs which had been completed. Roger Grooms informed deputies that he came to work Thursday and noticed the truck was missing. An employee who had been living in a camper near the shop, 52 year old Robert Neil Rutkowski was also gone along with the keys to the truck. Grooms also noticed the cell phone used for shop purposes was also missing.

Grooms though has that phone linked to his personal phone and was able to pull the shop phone up on his personal phone. He noticed the GPS on the shop phone had been used with a target of an address on Reynolds Rd in Toledo, Ohio, where Robert Rutkowski is from. The phone was tracked to I-75 in Tennessee near the Kentucky state line. A warrant has been issued for Rutkowski’s arrest for theft over $10,000.