HOUSTON — It was a terrifying morning for the parents of a toddler who was taken by car thieves from a northwest Houston laundromat early Tuesday.
Houston police and Harris County sheriff’s deputies responded to reports of a kidnapping after the car was stolen with the 2-year-old girl inside.
The 911 call came in from the 10600 block of Strickland shortly after 3 a.m. where deputies began looking for a silver sedan taken outside of a laundromat. The mother admitted she left the keys in the ignition when she went inside to do laundry.
"I put the clothes inside the dryer. I seen the car that I thought looked like mine pulling out of the parking spot that I parked in," Johnnel McQueen said. "
She ran to the door but a man was blocking her way.
"A dude stopped me, 'Can I use your charge?' I pushed him out the way and when I walked near the door the car was speeding off," McQueen said.
Houston police joined in on the search, and the child was found wandering in the Mi Tienda parking lot in the 3500 block of W. Little York, nearly 10 miles from where the vehicle was first reported stolen.
Her family said a good Samaritan spotted the girl and called police around 3:30 a.m.
"It was a man and a woman saying that they picked my baby off the highway. She was walking off the highway," McQueen said.
An ambulance was called to the scene to check on the child, and she appeared to be fine. Little Journe was watching cartoons on her parents' phone shortly after the incident.
Her parents learned a tough lesson.
"I never thought it would happen to me but it happened to me. Everybody think like that, but it can happen to anybody," father Justin Fulkino said.
"... If you are going to leave your keys in the car, lock the door," advised McQueen. "Or whatever just don't do it. It just happens in the blink of an eye. Like two seconds it happened super quick."
Police said they are now investigating the crime as a car theft, not a kidnapping, because the child was left unharmed. They said three suspects may have been involved in the car theft.
They are looking for a woman who drove off in the car and two men who tried to cause a distraction at the laundromat and eventually took off on foot.
The car has been recovered.
If you know anything, call Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477).