Hi there, my name is Meghan Casey and I’m a Professional Ventriloquist, and the past 25 years, I’ve been practicing this unique art and have been performing live shows while operating under my business as Rocky Mountain Puppets. My vehicle is essential for traveling around the country performing shows, and I have been fighting a financial uphill battle since February 2020 — Let me explain.

On February 7, 2020 my 2017 Honda CRV was stolen from a gym parking lot in Broomfield, Colorado. My identity was also unfortunately stolen the same day since my Social Security card was in the car when it was stolen. Normally, I DON’T carry my SSN card with me, but before I went to the gym that day, I went to the DMV to go take care of a few things where that was needed. To top it all off, all of my show equipment was stolen. My entire livelihood had disappeared right before my eyes….

And YES, my locker was LOCKED! As I was heading into the locker room to gather my things after my workout, I noticed that my gym lock had been broken off. I rushed over to open the locker and found only my snow boots, and jacket…but no keys. From there, I immediately ran outside to discover that my car was not where I had parked it.

Also, I had a show the next day, but NONE of my equipment do it with!! Everything I need to run my business was GONE!

A police report was filed, and then 3 days later I received a call from the Emery County Sheriff in Green River, Utah to find out that my car had been recovered with three individuals inside. They apparently ran out of gas and were pulled over on the side of the road on I70 West. Not only where they found just pulled over on the side of the road, they were found pushing my car with a FRONT END LOADER to try and get to the nearest gas station. They were arrested and then began the whole fiasco to go collect my car out of the impound that it was towed to.

When my dad and I showed up to the impound in Green River, UT, I was heartbroken to see what these people had done to my car, and to find that my entire livelihood was gone. Puppets, sound equipment, showcases, the list goes on….

The insurance company that I had at the time of this whole ordeal wouldn’t tow my car over to the nearest car shop in Grand Junction, CO, so I had a to drive it over there. And as you can see, these individuals who stole my car were clearly cooking meth, and shooting up heroin in my car. It was a biohazard. It was the most disgusting smell I have ever smelt in my entire life. All of the windows had to be down while I was driving over to Grand Junction, and I even needed to pull over a few times, so I wouldn’t pass out from how bad it was.

The insurance adjuster came to look at the car in Grand Junction and I went back to Denver with my dad since this is going to be a very long process to find out what was going on. Even though biohazardous drugs were found in my car, the insurance company decided to pour $17,372 into repair repairs to fix the vehicle.

Here’s the kicker…this car was PAID OFF. I fought with the insurance company on their decision to spend money on the repairs vs totaling the car. They were impossible to get a hold of, and started following through with the claim to repair the damages.

My car was in the shop for 38 days, and then I started receiving emails that my performances were getting canceled due to COVID-19. The emails started flooding in, and in the blink of an eye, I had 420 shows cancelled with my entire income completely stripped from me.

I finally got a call saying that my car is ready so I drove over to Grand Junction to go get it. When I arrived to pick up the car, it still smelled DISGUSTING. And they apparently ran two biohazard cleaning bombs in it. I told the shop that they needed to demand to the insurance company to do a drug test on the car, but no one was listening to me.

I drove back to Denver in a car that smelled horrendous with the entire world being put in lockdown the next day.

I started working for Amazon Flex to just try and keep up with bills, and to recover the show items that were stolen out of my car. In April 2020 I started posting on TikTok, and it became my saving grace to help me pay my bills a little bit better.

Fast forward a year later to 2021, I have been experiencing really bad headaches because I was still driving for Amazon Flex using my vehicle. When the world opened up a little bit more again, I demand DEMANDED that my insurance company do a drug test on my car. Low and behold, my car tested for high traces of methamphetamine…. A year later… with two biohazard bombs already done on the inside.

The insurance company finally totaled out my car; however, they did it at the mileage a year later. And since they had already put all the money into repairs, I got the short end of the stick with only a $6200 payout.

When I went to go shop for a new vehicle, I knew I needed something reliable, and with low mileage because of how much I drive. I did A LOT of car shopping, until I found my 2018 Toyota RAV4 adventure. This was the perfect fit for me and it held all my show equipment that I had replaced perfectly.

The sales guy got all the paperwork together and ran my credit, which had also gotten destroyed from the people who stole my car….like my score went from a 800 to 490 destroyed. I unfortunately needed to sign a loan with 16% APR. I thought I would be able to remove the items that the thieves had put on my credit report in a timely manner, but it took me up until August 2025 to get my score back to somewhat normal.

I bought my 2018 RAV4 Adventure with 32,000 miles on it in September 2021, and just recently had to trade it in for a 2022 RAV4 adventure due to the amount of miles that I put on the 2018 Toyota, which was 286,000 miles. And yes, I considered other vehicles, but I was running out of time because my car was a ticking time bomb due to a lot of computer issues going on.

I was severely upside down in my old loan due to this entire situation, and I pretty much out drove the life of my car and I couldn’t afford the big repairs as well as my car payment. This meant I had $16,000 and negative equity rolling into my new loan, but I am now in a car with lower mileage.

Moral of the story is that I’ve unfortunately been fighting a financial uphill battle with my car ever since this theft. I went to being in a paid off car to being so severely upside down from the situation.

Having a car payment of $620 biweekly is making it nearly impossible for me to focus on my business, and I’m at a point where I’m going to have to give up my business entirely to pursue a different career. I’ve set this goal to make it so I’m no longer upside down in a vehicle. 

I know economic times are tough for everyone right now, but if you are in a position to where you can even donate $5, it would mean the world to me. You’re helping me get one step closer to saving me and my business.