Hours after Amy Brackett's car was stolen, she received a call telling her that her car had been used in a jewelry store robbery and that the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office needed to process it for evidence.

"They ripped off the rain guard here and got in through the door," Bracket said of how thieves stole her car. "(They) broke the steering column and used a screw driver and turned it and drove off with it."

After the thieves abandoned it, Brackett's car was towed to the county's impound. After it was dusted for finger prints, Brackett was told she could pick up her car at John's Towing Service, never imagining she would have to pay a dime, let alone hundreds of dollars, for the towing.

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"It was a $426 charge at that time," Brackett said. "I said, 'I am the victim. How can you charge me?' I said, 'I had no choice of my car being towed to evidence. I want to know who's stolen my car. Why am I being charged?' He said that's the way it works. He said, 'By the way, we need it in cash,' and he said, 'If you don't pick it up today, then you will be continuously charged until you pick up your car.' So I went to the bank and emptied out my savings."

Brackett's car was found abandoned and running in the parking lot of a hotel about a mile from her home. The impound lot for the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office where her car was towed is only about four miles from there. Yet Brackett was charged for more than 100 miles at $3 a mile, or about $300.

The reason Brackett was charged so much was that John's Towing is more than 20 miles away.

Channel 4 investigator Jennifer Waugh went to the towing facility and talked to the owner, John Rogers, who towed Brackett's car. She asked him for an explanation for why Brackett was charged so much even though her car was towed one way and not roundtrip.

Rogers said he felt so badly about what happened to Brackett that he wrote her a check on the spot for all but $100, the cost to tow her car to the Sheriff's Office impound lot.

"When you presented that to me, I felt moved to reimburse the lady, all right?" Rogers said. "I'm sure she'll be happy to hear that."

Rogers said he had no idea Brackett's car had been stolen, and he said he'll do business differently from now on.

"Now that you brought it to my attention, this is the first time I heard about this," Rogers said. "We're just going to charge a flat rate, no mileage, when there's a victim involved in a crime like that."

Additionally, the Sheriff's Office said Brackett's car should have never been towed from the county's impound lot to John's Towing, running up her bill.

"Someone made a decision for it to be towed to another lot, and we're going to find out why it fell through the crack and why she was charged that extra money when she shouldn't have been," said Kevin Kelshaw, of the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office. "The sheriff ordered to have the other $100 that she's out and bring it up at a staff meeting to make sure it doesn't happen again."