Single mom texts thief to return stolen van and he does! (VIDEO)

A single man of five children walked out of a Kmart store and found that her van was stolen. After reaching out to the thief via text messages, she had her van safely returned to her.

Megan Bratten from Missouri was leaving a Kmart store when she found the van she used to for her job was missing.

Learning that it had been driven off by a thief, Ms Bratten remembered her phone was in the vehicle and began to message the driver.

"I used some pretty explicit words and I said 'Hey, you just stole a single mother of five's work van. You are ruining my life here."

The thief didn't respond. At least not at first. Bratten kept trying though. She sent multiple messages over three hours. In the last message, she pleaded with the thief.

Three hours and four messages later, the text that finally persuaded the thief to relent read: "OMG car thief people can you just give me my van back! It would be epic, the miracle I need right now."

"He texted me back and gave me step-by-step directions where to find the van and I went there with my mom, and my dog and the van was there," Ms Bratten said.

She decided not to report the incident to police after the driver told her he was driven by desperation.

"I can really relate on the human level of the struggle of feeling desperate and making poor choices. I can understand how people act out of fear making poor choices. What matters in the end, he really did the right thing," she said.

Police say it was very risky for Bratten to return to pick up her van without calling them. They would have gone with her.