The Disappearing Mercedes Story

1975

A True Story

Written 05/2013* 633 Words*

By Howard Yasgar

In 1963, I moved from New Haven Connecticut to Miami Florida.

Once I was living in Miami, I took every opportunity to go fishing in the Florida Keys.

At the time, the Islamorada area of the keys was considered the fishing capital of the world.

The Florida Keys was also famous and known as the Marijuana smuggling capital of the world.

Pretty much everyone knew that a large percentage of the population in the Keys made their living smuggling, the people jokingly called the bales of Marijuana, Square Groupers. (A Grouper is a local fish).

To reach the area in the Keys called Islamorada from Miami, you first had to drove 18 miles through the everglades to reach the first island called Key Largo.

The long drive through the everglades to reach Key Largo was called the 18-mile stretch.

The 18-mile stretch was a long drive, and because you rarely saw a State Trooper anywhere, it gave everyone the opportunity to speed.

However, once you reached the town of Key Largo, you had to slow down, because it was just another few miles to Islamorada where many of the charter fishing boats were located, and also where many affluent people built second homes.

I was told t0he following true story in 1975.

One day, as a State Trooper was heading north to Miami on the 18-mile stretch, he spotted a white Mercedes Benz coupe with a red racing stripe, it was heading south towards Islamorada, and it appeared to be going well over 100 MPH.

Rather than turn around and take chase, the State Trooper radioed the local police In Islamorada to be on the lookout for a speeding white Mercedes.

The police in Islamorada quickly set up a trap on U.S. 1, and waited, but the white Mercedes never showed up.

The police assumed the driver had possibly stopped at one of the local hotels in Key Largo.

So, over the next few days the police drove into all the hotel parking lots looking for a white Mercedes with a red racing stripe.

After a week of searching, they didn’t find the car, so they eventually gave up and stopped looking.

In Islamorada there are two parallel roads, one is U.S. 1, it’s the road that most all of the tourist and local traffic use.

The other road is less used, it’s located on the ocean side of U.S. 1, and it’s called the “Old Road”.

The old road was once the original road in the Keys, but now it was only used by local people owning homes along the ocean side of U.S. 1.

Most of the ocean side homes are hidden from view, located on highly wooded lots and many have long private driveways.

These homes were referred to as “Millionaires Row”.

It was because of the long driveways; you couldn’t see any of these expensive homes from the road.

One day the police received a frantic phone call from a girl, she said she was living in one of the homes on Millionaires Row.

She said she had just found her boyfriend dead; he was on their sailboat which was moored behind their house.

When the police arrived, not only did they find her boyfriend dead in the sailboat, but he was surrounded by bales of marijuana and lots of Marijuana weighing equipment.

Parked next to the house were six brand new late model Mercedes Benz cars, each was a different color, and one was white with a red racing stripe on it, it appears the police had finally found their man.