El Paso man’s car stolen, damaged hours after thousands join him for shooting victim wife’s funeral

A widower, who just buried his shooting victim wife amid an outpouring of support from thousands of strangers, had his vehicle severely damaged hours later in an apparent case of theft and vandalism.

Antonio Basco, 61, of El Paso made worldwide headlines after issuing a public invitation to his wife Margie Reckard’s funeral, saying he felt alone as the couple didn’t have any nearby relatives. Over 3,000 people turned out for her services and over a thousand flower arrangements were sent for the funeral.

Angel Gomez of Operation Hope, which helped coordinate funerals for many of El Paso’s mass shooting victims, confirmed the unfortunate news of the destruction of Basco’s vehicle to ABC-7 on Sunday. Meantime, Casa Ford and Nissan indicated to ABC-7 that it would be helping out financially to try to get Basco a replacement vehicle.

In a social media post, Vanessa Kondow, a towing dispatcher, said that Basco’s SUV was stolen and wrecked on Saturday night. It was towed back to his house on Sunday morning.

“WTF is wrong with people!?” she wrote in her post about the incident.

Kondow said Basco just had the car completely serviced and repaired before it was taken. She released a photo showing the extent of the damages.

In addition to the car destruction, Kudow said the thief also stole a pressure washing machine from Basco’s trailer that he used for his mobile car washing business.

Attempts by ABC-7 to reach Basco and police officials for comment were not immediately successful.