The worst kind of car prowl imaginable happened in Everett

A car prowler rummaging through your car is one thing. Finding a couple doing, umm, something gross and illegal in your backseat is something altogether more terrifying.

That’s what Meghan, a Snohomish County resident in her early 20s, said happened to her last week. She told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that she went to her car in Everett at about 7:20 a.m. on the morning of Nov. 15 and noticed from a distance that the windows were steamy from the inside.

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“I’m thinking, hmm, that’s strange I wonder why that’s the way it is,” said Meghan, a friend of Dori’s daughter. “I just saw this big black mask and I thought, huh, did I leave my jacket back there or did my boyfriend leave something. And I look closer and I see skin and then the shape turned into a man and then a woman and then finally it registered: Oh my gosh, those are people. Those are two people laying in my back seat.

“I closed my door, I locked it again, immediately start crying, was trying to stay calm. There were neighbors around in my apartment complex and nobody helped. They just saw a regular car and I was just like, OK I’m on my own.”

Meghan said she called 911 and explained the situation. She said she hid in an alcove of her apartment and watched. The disheveled pair, roughly her age or younger, left about 15 minutes later, gathered up some belongings and calmly walked out of the car.

“They just looked like zombies,” she said. “It was terrifying, frankly, because I made eye contact with the woman and she didn’t even register that I was there, that it was another human being staring back at her.”

A Snohomish County deputy showed up about five minutes later, she said, and they went through what remained. She described it like this: “They had left behind quite a few of their personal belongings. The backseat of my car was completely trashed … newspapers scattered everywhere and the only thing visible that you could see that was obviously not mine were these little orange needle caps.”

The deputy collected some of the items but warned Meghan to be careful because there could be other dangerous items inside. Indeed, there were. Meghan said she lifted newspapers and found baggies of heroin and a syringe with fluid inside. She was told later by the deputy to throw it away in the dumpster, a piece of advice she said “doesn’t sit well with her.”

Meghan said she is positive that the door was locked and was told that there has been a rash of reports in the area of homeless people stealing key fobs and testing them to see which cars will open.

“My little Corolla with the cat mom stickers just happened to be the unlucky winner,” she said.

A message to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office for comment has not been returned.

Meghan said she’s not frustrated with the police response or even angry at the squatters themselves. Her concern is that this is a testament to how rampant this problem is in the community and that it’s becoming accepted.

“It would be really easy to be mad, to be mad at the cop or the people who broke in,” she said. “But I don’t think that’s very constructive since I get frustrated when people say it’s rampant, it’s just a problem. It’s so passive, there’s no action behind that.”

Afterward, Meghan said she made calls to nonprofits who assist chronic drug users.

“I really believe that for us to make a difference with this, to prevent other families having this kind of situation, other families experiencing this situation, it starts with us,” she said. “And it starts with you and it starts with me.”

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