Neighbors find stolen cycle

A developmentally disabled teenager has her three-wheeled cycle back after a neighbor tracked it down and many others offered to buy her a new one.

As anybody whose bicycle has been stolen knows, the chances of seeing it again are pretty slim.

But not everybody has neighbors like the ones Rex and Allis Rickey have.

Last Thursday evening, the couple returned to their home on north Wiscomb Street to find that their foster daughter’s red Schwinn with chrome fenders was missing from the carport where it had been chained.

One of Alyssa’s biggest joys was riding her three-wheeler up and down the driveway, Aliss Rickey said, and her daughter, 17, was “devastated.”

The Rickeys reported the theft to police on Friday. A neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous, cruised the neighborhood in search of the missing three-wheeler on Saturday.

The neighbor came across a groundskeeper at a nearby apartment complex who had just seen a teenage boy riding the Schwinn. The two men found the youth and called Rex Rickey, who showed up to claim his daughter’s property.

“Alyssa was thrilled to get her bike back,” Allis Rickey said. “She’s riding it again.”

But if the family hadn’t recovered Alyssa’s Schwinn, numerous people who had read about the theft in the newspaper offered to replace it.

“I can’t believe the outpouring of people willing to help,” Allis Rickey said.

As it turned out, Rex Rickey knows the parents of the boy who later admitted taking the three-wheeler. They said their son told them he had bought it for $10. The father promised the boy would be disciplined.