Melissa Riggs was moving her family to a new home and during the same trip taking her daughter to a hospital where a doctor offers hope for the 21-year-old’s life-threatening kidney disease.
But before Riggs and her daughter Cassidy Riggs could board a plane at Denver International Airport for a trip to a Cincinnati hospital, her 17-foot U-Haul truck was stolen along with two golden retrievers.
“Everything we own is in the truck. Everything,” Riggs said.
Riggs, Cassidy and another daughter had loaded their furniture, a cedar chest filled with a life’s worth of irreplaceable mementos, and Dozer and Hoss, their pets, and moved from Gillette, Wyo.
On Saturday, they stopped at the Days Inn on Tower Road, where they met Riggs’ parents. The truck was still parked within sight of their room at 8 p.m. But 45 minutes later, when they wanted to walk the dogs, the U-Haul was gone, Riggs said.
Riggs’ father was driving the U-Haul to her new home in Hill City, Kan., while she, her mother and daughters flew to Ohio.
The hotel will get them to the airport.
But Riggs and her daughters are worried about their pets. She doesn’t expect to get her possessions back, but she hopes the thieves won’t harm their dogs.
“I feel very lonely,” Riggs said.
