Where is Katelynn Shepard's truck?

NORWALK — For years, Tricia Shepard believed the truck her daughter died in no longer existed. Katelynn Shepard, 21, died in 2018 after her truck went into a ravine along a rural Huron County roadway. According to Huron County Sheriff deputies, the truck was just "gone" — that is what Tricia remembers being told last month when she asked for the truck to be tested for mechanical issues. Then came a significant revelation. While examining records connected to Katelynn's death, the title information tied to the red 2004 Ford F-150 involved in the fatal crash was located. The vehicle, records showed, was still titled in Katelynn's name. For Tricia, it was the first indication in years that the truck may not have disappeared. "I didn't think it even existed anymore," she said. Aspects of the accident and the following investigation have prompted calls by Katelynn's family for the Huron County Sheriff's Office to turn the accident over to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation to further probe the crash and what caused it. The hope is that tracking down and obtaining the truck might possibly yield some new evidence or otherwise answer the family's unresolved questions. The family hopes that by locating the truck, they can make it available for testing by deputies or independent forensic experts with a final goal of handing the vehicle over to the bureau. 'Something wasn't right' Some additional context on the night of the crash recently came via an interview with the tow company that collected Katelynn's vehicle from the scene. According to a representative from one of the towing companies involved in the truck recovery, the scene proved difficult almost immediately. The tow truck operator requested that the Reflector not use their name for fear of retaliation. One tow truck was initially dispatched, but troopers on scene ordered the company to try to "lift the vehicle out of the ravine" rather than drag it out, the representative said. That required a second truck — one equipped "like a crane" — to be brought to the scene. "They wanted us to lift it out instead of pulling it, I guess to protect the ground so they could investigate, they said. The attempt failed. "When the bigger truck got here, it couldn't make the swing around the tree, so we ended up just pulling it out as we planned before," they said. Instead, the truck was ultimately pulled from the ravine with Katelynn's body still inside, according to the towing company representative. According to the representative, the scene appeared "strange" enough to the tow truck operators that they took photographs, something they did not normally do. The driver "had been doing this forever, he owned the company, and he said we should take pictures. We took a lot of pictures, we never do that," they said. "He just said something wasn't right and I felt the same way. We had done hundreds of these." The driver he is referring to died in the years following the accident. The Huron County Coroner later arrived, pronounced Katelynn dead, and removed her body from the scene. "When the truck was back on the road, we waited for the coroner and he removed her and then we loaded the truck onto the flatbed," they said. The truck was then taken to an impound lot and remained on the back of the tow truck until the company received another call "later that night or early the next morning," according to the representative. The vehicle was then transported to the Ohio State Highway Patrol investigative warehouse in Bucyrus. That is where the trail begins to fade. Picked up? Troopers later told the Reflector that the same towing company picked up the truck after the patrol completed its investigation. But the towing company disputes that account, saying it never retrieved the vehicle from Bucyrus. Meanwhile, Tricia remembers receiving a phone call sometime later asking whether she wanted the pickup returned to her. At the time, she said no. "I didn't want to look at that truck in my driveway every day," Tricia said. "Now that these questions have come up, I hate that I said that. This may be the most important clue in finding out the truth." For years, Tricia believed the truck had likely been destroyed. But after obtaining title records through the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, she began wondering whether the vehicle — or at least records connected to it — might still exist somewhere. That possibility has sent her searching in places she never imagined she would be. The post and the yards Tricia spent recent weeks contacting scrapyards and scanning rows of wrecked vehicles searching for one specific truck: a red 2004 Ford F-150 once driven by her daughter. The Reflector accompanied Tricia, going to the Bucyrus Ohio state patrol post, followed by several scrapyards in the area. At the state patrol post, Tricia asked a trooper if he had access to either the accident report or to the database containing the disposition of the truck. The trooper informed her that he cannot release any information and that a public records request would have to be made through the state public information office — a legally correct response, but one that left her no closer to an answer. Following the inquiry, Tricia searched her phone for the location of salvage yards in the area and telephoned several while driving to a yard on U.S. 30 outside Bucyrus. Walking through the yard, Tricia spotted a red Ford F-150 in a corner but further inspection showed it wasn't fire-damaged. Another dead end. "It's like looking for a needle in a haystack," she said. Nearly eight years after Katelynn's death, the truck is more than just a vehicle to her family — it's one of the last remaining pieces of her daughter's story that she still believes has unanswered questions.