The Would-Be Car Thief with Terrible B.O.

The stench left behind by Joshua Graden, who police say they found naked in a Bradenton woman’s car, was almost too much for the owner to bear.

The 35-year-old woman said she got her Chevrolet detailed the day after officers found Graden, 21, of Osprey, nude in the vehicle parked in her driveway.

“I got it sprayed down because it smelled terrible,” the victim told the Bradenton Herald. “I have never seen him in my life. It is kind of creepy.”

At around 2 a.m., Monday, Bradenton police responded to a call for service in the victim’s neighborhood, in the 4900 block of 34th Avenue West. Another resident in the neighborhood had called police after a man he did not recognize was banging on his door demanding to come inside, according to a police report.

When officers arrived, the man had moved on, but police found clothes in the middle of the street, according to the victim.

“The person who first called lives across the street from me, and I guess the police found clothes in the road,” she said.

An officer then noticed a man sitting in the driver’s seat of the Chevrolet across the street from where the call originated. The victim said her Chevrolet had been locked.

“I always lock the car because my kids are always in it,” she said.

The officer confronted Graden in the Chevrolet, who repeated over and over “he didn’t know where he was, or what was going on,” the police report stated.

When the officer asked Graden his name, he began to swear. The owner of the vehicle said an irate Graden threw an umbrella, as well as towelettes and snacks for her two infant children, from the Chevrolet all over her yard.

Police reports say Graden resisted being handcuffed, but officers eventually arrested him on charges of felony burglary of a conveyance and resisting arrest without violence. He has since been released from the Manatee County jail on supervised release on $1,000 bond.

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