Gold-Plated Car `Death Rims' Create Danger For Owners -- Coveted, Trendy Wheels Cost Thousands

DALLAS - Rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg immortalizes the flashy car wheels in song. One young man says they attract women. A Los Angeles cop, however, calls them "death rims."

Police across the country report that people are being killed by thieves who covet their custom wheels, the fanciest of which are plated with gold. They can cost $4,500 a set.

"It's an increasing problem," said Dallas police spokesman Ed Spencer. "And it's senseless."

In Dallas, at least nine people have been killed for their wheels this year, police say. Even in Greenville, Texas, with a population slightly more than 23,000, authorities attribute a slaying this month to the victim's gold wheels.

Los Angeles police estimated that 10 deaths a year are connected to carjackings involving fancy rims.

"That's dropped off a little bit, though," said Detective Larry Callestad, who works the crime-ridden, 58-square-mile South Bureau district. "The rims are so dangerous that people just aren't putting them on their cars anymore. They are death rims."

Police say 467 sets of wheels have been stolen this year in Dallas, some at gunpoint.

Now, custom wheels have become status symbols.

Billy Raven, 21, said he is treated differently since putting the wheels on his car.

"I don't know what it is about them, but it really helps a brother out with the females," he said.

One man told The Dallas Morning News that he has been chased twice and shot at once since buying custom wheels for his car.

"Anyone who has those rims has got to have a fast car," the man said.

On Tuesday, a Dallas jury sentenced Toronto Patterson to death by injection for murdering his cousin's 3-year-old daughter while stealing a set of gold-plated custom wheels. Patterson, 18, also was accused but not tried in the killings of the girl's 6-year-old sister and their mother. Each was shot once in the head.

Also on Tuesday, three men were charged with killing two men, apparently to get cash and gold-plated wheel rims, Dallas police said.

Dayton Wheel Products, one of the largest manufacturers, will add serial numbers to its products next year so they can be traced, said spokesman Mike Edgerton.

"That way, a thief might have a second thought," he said. "We, of course, abhor the violence that's going on. These are sick individuals."