The suspect was led to an interview room in the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia, where he met two detectives from York.
The detectives, Dan Craven and Frank Clark, had made the two-hour drive to Philadelphia to speak to the inmate, who, a couple of days earlier, had been arrested after crashing a stolen car in Kensington, a neighborhood north of the city’s center.
The prison is chaotic and massive – the largest of the four prisons run by the Philadelphia Department of Prisons, housing more than 2,300 inmates. The detectives cooled their heels for about two hours, watching as lawyers and police and inmates clamored in the waiting room, before the suspect was brought to the interview room.
The suspect took a seat at the small table, and after introductions, Craven asked, “Where’s the dog?”
The suspect replied, “What dog?”
'A very large piece of my life that's missing'
The dog is named Wilder.
When the car of his owner, Sam Fullam, was recovered in Kensington, Wilder was nowhere to be seen. He had been in Fullam’s Audi Q5 when it was stolen near York’s Continental Square on May 14, and he hasn’t been seen since.
Fullam, a former York activist who now lives in Brooklyn and works as a political organizer and data analyst, has continued to search for Wilder since then.
“He’s a very large piece of my life that’s missing,” she said.
'He was a wild puppy'
Fullam acquired Wilder about five years ago when he was a puppy, just two months old. She was 21 at the time and, she said, “it was not a super thought-out decision.” She had been working as a veterinary nurse and having a dog seemed like the thing to do.
She settled on a border collie, a breed known for being intelligent and easy to train. They are also known for their high levels of energy. Wilder was one of eight in a litter of the mating of a border collie and an Australian shepherd. He was the only dog with white fur – his siblings were mostly black – and he stood out. “He was a fuzzy little fat puppy,” Fullam said. “I had to have him.”
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When it came to naming her new puppy, Fullam wanted something unique. The actor Gene Wilder had recently passed away, and Fullam was a fan, so she thought Wilder would be a good name. He kind of looks like Gene Wilder's character from Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein," with a shock of wild white hair atop his head. It also fit his personality. He liked to chew on shoes. When Fullam would do laundry, he would snatch clothing from the dryer and drag it away. He had a lot of energy. “He was a wild puppy,” she said.
She fell in love, as only a dog person can understand, tolerating canine quirks and difficulties while receiving unconditional love in return.
“He is just my best friend,” Fullam said. She worked from home as an activist and political organizer and data analyst, and Wilder was her constant companion. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she, like many of us, became a homebody and the bond between her and Wilder grew. She loved to travel, taking weekend getaways, and Wilder was her traveling companion, standing on the passenger seat with his head out the window. “He was the guy who was there for me through everything,” she said. “We did everything together. Wilder was such a mama’s boy. It was always just the two of us.”
On May 14, Fullam and Wilder were visiting her family in York, and Fullam stopped by the Prince Street Café on Continental Square to grab a salad. She left Wilder in her new blue Audi Q5 while she ran into the café. She left the car running, knowing that she’d only be a minute. Besides, it was about 4:30 in the afternoon and she didn’t think someone would be brazen enough to steal a car in broad daylight right on the square.
When she emerged from the café, her car was gone.
At first, she thought that she had forgotten where she had parked and walked around the block. After about 10 minutes, she realized that her car had been stolen.
She called 911.
When the police arrived, she was emotional. Yes, her car was missing, but she was more concerned about Wilder.Much more.
'I have a soft spot for animals'
Every morning, the detectives check the police reports from the previous day, looking for cases to follow up or those that may be connected to cases they are already investigating.
As Craven read the report about Fullam’s car being stolen, it struck a chord. His family has three dogs, two German shepherds named Maverick and Zoe and a little Yorkie named Daisy. “I have a soft spot for animals,” Craven said, “and no tolerance for people who abuse them.”
Although he is assigned to the department’s crimes against persons unit – investigating mostly shootings and homicides – he looked into the case, checking for any surveillance video that might have captured the theft, finding nothing.
A couple of days later, Fullam’s car turned up in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood, a low-income enclave wedged between North Philadelphia and the Lower Northeast. Craven and Clark drove to Philadelphia to follow up. “Here we were, murder police, going to Philadelphia on a missing dog case,” Craven said.
The driver had misjudged a corner and crashed Fullam's Audi into a row of parked cars. Philadelphia police took the driver into custody. The arresting officer asked him, “Where’s the dog?” The suspect didn’t know what she was talking about. There was no dog in the car when he acquired it from a bearded white man with big rings in his ears and a Fighting Irish Leprechaun tattoo on his right forearm. He didn’t know the man’s name. He told the detectives that he traded a bag of heroin and about a hundred bucks for the Audi. (Audi Q5s start at $43,500, so it could be considered a good deal.)
It’s not known whether the man who traded the car for the dope and cash was involved in the theft. The car, detectives said, could have changed hands several times before winding up in Philadelphia. The detectives told the suspect, “We’re not here to jack you up for stealing the car. We want to know about the dog.”
The suspect – who was not charged with stealing Fullam’s car – was cooperative. When told that the dog was missing, he reportedly said, “That’s not cool.” He told the detectives that if Wilder had been in the car when he traded for it, he would have dropped the dog off at someone’s house so it could be cared for. He wanted to help.
While he didn’t know the bearded man’s name, he had his phone number in his cell, which, he believed, was still in the car. If the detectives recovered the phone, he would give them his passcode so they could find the man’s number.
The phone, though, hadn’t turned up.
The detectives returned to York empty handed. They haven’t received any tips about Wilder’s whereabouts.
“We would have loved to get the dog back,” Craven said. “It just kind of petered out.”
'Never going to stop looking for him'
No one has been charged in the theft of Fullam’s car. Fullam, though, had been cited for leaving her car unattended while it was running.
She follows up every tip she receives on social media or from callers, dropping whatever she’s doing to check it out. Only one tip was accompanied by video, but it was too dark to see whether it depicted Wilder.
“He’s my best friend,” she said. “I’m never going to stop looking for him.”
Columnist/reporter Mike Argento has been a York Daily Record staffer since 1982. Reach him at mike@ydr.com.
