Summer 2022 Meth/Stolen Vehicles in Meaningful

Keeping my locations secret for safety reasons I won’t divulge where I am but I’m in 2 separate cities divided by a river in 2 different states. I took on a stolen vehicle case, a van, from a suburban family. I had actually found the remains of the vehicle first near my home in an alley. Checking the vans vin is when I found it was stolen, also it had no license plate. I waited a week, watching the van every night. I knew someone was living in it by the clothes and food remains, also needles. There were also kid toys and stuffed animals which was concerning. I recorded two women and a 9 year old boy. Each night they’d comeback to the shell of the van and while the kid slept they would be smoking meth. This van turned out to be tricky for me because it was stolen in the neighboring city in another state, yet I could drive there in 20 min no traffic. The issue was the van was here and stolen elsewhere and I am only licensed for the one state. So I couldn’t do everything by myself and contacted a counter part in the other state, coordinating a plan for the arrests, transfers and van recovery. I was fortunate to work with a skilled women then and we discovered the pair of women with the boy were a homeless couple and the boy was biologically the one woman’s son. The older woman had stolen other vehicles as well and was wanted in both states. Over the years I have seen a pattern emerge where property is stolen in one state, then sold for parts across the border in the next state. Makes things more difficult but usually just a stall tactic. Eventually after submitting all the evidence I made the arrest and later the other half was brought in more peacefully because of the boy. The van was secured as evidence for the original family, so justice served there. Both women were addicted to meth and were separated, sent to different womens treatment centers. The boy was sent to temporary children’s center. Unfortunately the partner of the mother with the boy died during detox. The withdrawals from meth and alcohol caused a heart attack. The mother was sent away to the other state for addiction treatment and lost custody of her 9 yr old. When I found all this out 2 weeks after the arrest I was devastated. First time I felt this way in this situation. Heart breaking. Roller coaster of emotions from a high, yay the victims got their vehicles back then shot down to… what have I done!? I felt emotions like I just killed a woman, separated a couple and made a little boy an orphan. I went to visit the kid, I don’t know why, I just felt the need to try and make him happy even just for an hour. I wrote to the mother as well and gave her my information and pledged to help her when she got out and stayed sober. About 9 months later I found out the mother stayed sober and was in a halfway house and the boy was up for adoption still. I left messages for the mother but never heard back from her. To this day I still question myself if this particular case was worth it…? Professionals tell me the life they were living was bound to get worse. Idk. It is hard to talk to talk about still and I have mixed emotions but it reminds me every time that each “bad guy” I take on has a story behind the problem at hand, also to know by taking it on I could drastically change others lives in the same way as that lesbian couple with the boy. I had a few nightmares about it where the boy grew up and sought me out later but not for violence but to make me feel bad for orphaning him. Whew still gives me shivers when I think about it.