Criagslist Scam Gave Away My Stuff!

Seventeen-year-old Chris Limbaugh watched the New Year's Day football games from a chair in the kitchen of his family's Walton County home. This year, it's a wheelchair. A spinal chord injury left him paralyzed from the waist down.

"It was just a regular night," he said about September 27, 2008. "I was sitting on the edge of the bridge and I lost my balance and fell."

His mother, Tammy Harvey, said when she saw his he was covered in blood. "It was shallow. He was really hurt. I was nervous and frantic."

After three and a half months in three different hospitals and two major surgeries, Tammy stayed with her son.

"Since that night he fell, I didn't come home."

During that time, their Walton County home on Highway 83 was mostly empty. Until November 8th. A friend taking care of their dog called Tammy. "She said there were trucks and cars hauling away our stuff."

When they rushed home, they found strangers answering a Craigslist ad. One of those strangers gave Tammy a copy of the listing:

"I have purchased a foreclosed property. It has a pole barn in the back yard that is stuffed full of things. If you need mechanic tools, carpenter tools, farm equipment of several attachments, a rail job dune buggy, a golf cart, a motor heist. . . The stuff is free."

The posting listed their address, but Tammy had never seen it before. BY the time they could stop it, almost everything in their garage was gone. Tammy estimates the loss at $10,000.: "Somebody mean did this."

Tammy's husband, Jimmy, makes his living with those tools. The family is now way behind on bills, rent, and medical expenses.

They've organized a fundraiser for January 31st at the James Thrasher Memorial Building in Botswick, Georgia at 12:00 pm.

Tammy says she never heard of Craigslist before, and just can't believe an internet prank could cause so much pain: "This was like kicking us while we were down."

A Walton County Sheriff's Department spokesman said they are investigating. They just received records from Criagslist about that bogus give-away posting. The spokesman tells 11 Alive News they are following leads from those records.