Missing shop cat Scrappie draws community search after van ride turns into disappearance
At LaPoint Discount Auto, the hardest part is the small, ordinary reminder. Scrappie’s bed is still there, her food is still there, and the shop cat who used to greet customers and keep everyone company is gone.
A shop cat who was part of the family
For Greg LaPoint and Heather Smith-LaPoint, Scrappie was not just an animal who wandered through the workplace. They say she had been part of the LaPoint Discount Auto family for four years, a familiar presence around the shop who welcomed customers and stayed near the workers through the day.
That is why the silence she left behind has hit so hard. Greg LaPoint said the couple have been scared, nervous, sad and heartbroken since she disappeared. Heather Smith-LaPoint described Scrappie as a fantastic cat and said it has been devastating to believe she was taken.
The loss also shows up in simple ways. Greg LaPoint said everyone at the shop misses her. They pass the spot where her bed sits, they see her food, and there is no Scrappie. In a place where she had become part of the routine, her absence is constant.
The moment Scrappie vanished
The owners say Scrappie has been missing since last Friday, when two customers came into the shop.
Greg LaPoint said the men smelled of marijuana, so he asked them to go outside. He said Scrappie was near them while they were smoking, and he believes the smell drew her in. One of the men had his van door open the entire time, LaPoint said, and Scrappie jumped inside and started looking around, as cats do.
At that point, he said, it still looked like the kind of harmless curiosity many cat owners would recognize. A cat sees an open vehicle, a new space, something interesting to inspect. But when the customers left and the shop closed up, Scrappie was nowhere to be found.
LaPoint said he then checked security camera footage and saw the men leave with Scrappie still with them.
From there, the search became much more personal and much more urgent. LaPoint said he identified the man he believes was responsible, found his address and confronted him in person. According to LaPoint, the man first told him he was weird and denied taking the cat. LaPoint said the man later admitted taking Scrappie and referred to her as a stray.
LaPoint also said the man told him he had dumped Scrappie out of his van in East Toledo.
That account has driven the couple’s fear about where their cat could be now. LaPoint said he is worried for her safety and believes taking a cat from a loving home and putting her out on the street 14 to 15 miles away amounts to animal cruelty.
Flyers, sightings and a community trying to help
The LaPoints filed a report with the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office. They are also offering a $500 reward for Scrappie’s safe return.
Since her disappearance, much of their effort has been focused on the Eastside. The couple said they have spent the past week handing out hundreds of flyers there, hoping someone might spot Scrappie, recognize her and help bring her back.
Heather Smith-LaPoint said the response from other people has helped sustain them. She said many have stepped up to assist with the search, walking streets and neighborhoods and sharing Scrappie’s story widely on social media. For a family business trying to find a missing cat, those gestures have mattered.
The LaPoints said people have contacted them to report possible sightings of Scrappie on the Eastside. Those messages have offered at least some reason to keep looking, even as the uncertainty remains.
In stories about missing pets, there is often one detail that explains everything about why the search continues. Here, it is the way Scrappie fit into the daily life of the shop. She was not described as an occasional visitor or a cat who kept to herself. The owners say she greeted customers. She stayed close to the workers. She belonged to the rhythm of the place.
That helps explain why this search has become bigger than a lost-and-found notice. It has turned into a neighborhood effort built around the hope that a familiar cat can still make her way back to the people who know her best. The flyers, the shared posts, the reports of sightings and the reward all point to the same thing: the LaPoints are trying to recover a member of their family, and other people have decided that matters too.
For now, the case rests on the details the owners have shared and on the possibility that someone in East Toledo or on the Eastside may see Scrappie and recognize her. Until then, LaPoint Discount Auto remains a workplace with one presence missing, and a family still waiting for its shop cat to come home.
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