LARKSPUR, Colo. - A Larkspur family is reliving its close encounter with a car thief Friday morning. But this wasn't just any car thief... it was an adult and very menacing black bear.

The bear managed to get into Ben Story's Toyota Corolla, put the car into neutral and send the vehicle skidding over one hundred feet into some trees on the family's property.

A neighbor of the Storys first heard the car honking shortly after two a.m. When Douglas County Sheriff's Deputies arrived, they spotted the bear inside the vehicle. The Story family of five was asleep inside their house and never heard any commotion.

Ralph Story said his 17-year-old son had left a peanut butter sandwich inside the vehicle and said the scent of the food undoubtedly prompted the bear to break and enter.

The sheriff's deputies ultimately attached rope to one of the car doors, opened the door from a distance and let the bear scamper away.

Damage to the inside of the Toyota was extensive. Ralph Story said his insurance agent has told him the car will be a total loss. Story said bears are part of the scenery in the Larkspur area but he said a close encounter like this one has never happened to his family before.

LARKSPUR, Colo. - A Colorado teen said a bear got into his empty car, honked the horn and sent it rolling into a thicket with the bear inside. Ben Story said he and his family were asleep in their Larkspur home, 30 miles south of Denver, during the joyride early Friday. He said the bear got into the car through an unlocked door and knocked the shifter into neutral, which sent it rolling backward 125 feet.

Story thinks the door slammed shut when the car jolted to a stop, trapping the bear inside.

Neighbors had called 911, and deputies freed the bear by opening the door with a rope from a distance.

Nobody was hurt, but Story said he needs a new car the bear shredded the interior.