Cops: Auto Thief Made Damning Journal Entry

NOVEMBER 27--After allegedly swiping a van--which she later sold for scrap--a Minnesota woman made an incriminating entry in her personal journal, cops charge.

“Totally stole a car today! Something I never thought of doing,” Vanessa Guerra wrote. “Fucking superfreaking out about it.”

Investigators allege that Guerra, 30, made that written admission of guilt on the same August day that a Brown County man reported his 2004 Ford Freestar was stolen.

The van, worth $2000, was later sold for scrap at a salvage business in neighboring Blue Earth county (where Guerra resides in the city of Mankato). “Witnesses at the auto salvage business...stated that Guerra had brought the van in and sold it to them,” according to a November 22 criminal complaint.

During the auto theft probe, a Brown County Sheriff’s Office investigator “was able to locate a journal belonging to Guerra” containing her written exclamation that she, “Totally stole a car today!”

When contacted by the investigator, Guerra “denied knowing that the vehicle was stolen.”

Guerra, who has recently worked as a DoorDash driver, has been charged with a pair of felonies: receiving stolen property and theft. She is pictured in the above mugshot.

Guerra has previously been convicted of driving with a suspended license and driving without insurance. In June, she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft and was sentenced to a brief stay in the county jail and placed on unsupervised probation for a year. A judge also fined Guerra $354 and ordered her to “remain law-abiding.” (3 pages)