because all cars require licensing, and large databases exist for compiling the data, and if they know the type and color of vehicle, they can find it. they know how many were made, who owns them, the ones that were totaled, etc., and that means, for this car to be unidentifiable and unable to be traced to an owner, someone either slipped through a wire or the owner doesn't know the car is gone. there are a number of posts about this earlier in the thread, but this is unusual that LE would need the public's help to ID the owners.