Former prolific car thief turns life around and is now helping police: “Anyone can change”

Former prolific Colorado car thief turns life around and is now helping police. KCNC via CNN Newsource

Hondo Underwood has gone from running away from police in Colorado to running towards them.

“You can always make a comeback,” said the Pueblo resident.

Underwood was well known to police in the Denver metro area as a prolific car thief between 2015 and 2017, when he estimates he stole as many as 200 cars, trucks and SUVs.

“I was quick. I was pretty proficient doing what I did,” said Underwood during an interview this summer at his Pueblo home.

His life of crime fueled a drug habit and earned him grudging respect from police. Retired Lakewood police commander Mike Greenwell remembers Underwood as “pretty prolific. ... Very good at stealing vehicles.”

But Underwood grew weary of the criminal lifestyle, and in 2022 he agreed to an interview with CBS News providing tips on how people can avoid having their cars stolen. That interview led to numerous other media appearances and an invitation in June to speak to 400 auto theft detectives at a conference in Nashville. Underwood would be in the same room as the people he had been trying to avoid for years. He said it was “intimidating” facing all those cops. But he said he wanted to be “able to help them do their job properly.”

One of the organizers of the conference, Special Agent Christopher Cestare of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, said “once he cracked his first joke, he immediately got comfortable and it was like talking to a bunch of friends.”

“What an interesting story he has,” said Cestare. “I’m happy that he chose to share it with us.”

Underwood has now been booked to speak at another auto theft conference in Pennsylvania in September, as he continues making amends for his criminal past.

“The moral of my story is anyone can change,” said Hondo. “Just because you’re stuck in a lifestyle doesn’t mean that lifestyle has to define you forever.”

He is now married, with a wife and three daughters. He holds down a good job at a Pueblo lumberyard and says he has more work to do to give back, and help, not harm.

“If I can take something negative and turn it into something positive I will, and that’s where I’m at in life. Because if I can do it,” said Underwood, “anyone can do it.”