(CBS) – The eight Chicago school buses brazenly stolen last week for scrapping may not be an isolated case. Seven school buses were recently stolen in Northwest Indiana, too.

CBS 2’s Dorothy Tucker examines whether there’s a connection and what may be prompting thieves to take the buses.

It’s spring break at City Baptist Schools, so all the school buses are parked in the lot — all but six. Three were stolen on March 5, and another three from the church on Feb. 27.

“I can’t believe that someone would do that to me, do that to my company,” says Dorothy Nichols, whose company, RSI, owns one of the buses stolen from the school.

The vehicle had been rented to City Baptist. Another school bus RSI recently repaired was stolen from Iglesia Bautisa Church in East Hammond, Ind. on March 1.

Why would someone steal a school bus?

“Mainly for parts. I know a lot of them, they’ll take parts, engines, transmissions, whatever, down to Mexico, Central America,” Nichols says.

The recent thefts in northwest Indiana happened just days before the eight school buses were found shredded in a West Side scrap yard in Chicago.

Those were stolen March 8.

Nichols thinks there’s a connection.

The buses stolen in Chicago had GPS location devices, which is why the police were able to find them. The stolen buses in Indiana did not and are still missing.