They say mother knows best. And in the case of a missing Ohio infant, it was a mother’s hunch, and some serious Law & Order-worthy detective work that helped police find the baby just in time for the holidays.
According to the IndyStar, Kason Thomas and his twin brother Kyair went missing on December 19 in Columbus, Ohio, when a woman drove off in their mother’s car while the babies were in the back seat. Although Kyair was found early in the morning of December 20 in the Dayton International Airport parking lot, his brother had yet to be found when two Indianapolis mothers stepped in and made things right.
The amazing rescue started with a random encounter between Shyann Delmar and a woman she bought toys from in a parking lot of an Indianapolis gas station. Delmar agreed to give the woman a ride to a nearby Family Dollar store. But when she realized that something just wasn’t right, Delmar decided to take a video of the woman with her cellphone. She shared that video with her cousin, Mecka Curry, who helped Delmar confirm that the woman she had just had in her car looked a lot like a woman who had been in the local news as a kidnapping suspect. The cousins then decided to put a plan in place to help bring the woman to justice.
“I wanted just to verify it before I got her locked up,” Delmar said.
Ms. Delmar says she and the woman she knew as “Mae” exchanged phone numbers when they met. And when “Mae” called about buying more toys, Delmar and her cousin planned to get the woman to a store where they would let police know the suspect was in their custody.
After getting the runaround from the Columbus and Indianapolis police, Delmar and Curry took “Mae” to several stores, hoping she’d steal something and get caught. That didn’t work, but the cousins didn’t give up and eventually led police to their location where they conducted a traffic stop and took “Mae” into custody.
“You guys did fantastic,” a detective wrote in an email, “Because of your help, we are so much closer to finding that baby.”
But with the baby still missing, Delmar and Curry took it upon themselves to search for the twins’ mother’s stolen car. And after hours of looking, they found the Honda in a Papa John’s parking lot covered in snow with the baby inside.
In a December 22 tweet, the Indianapolis police department reported that Kason had been found.
Shout out to Delmar and Curry whose amazing determination helped stop a kidnapper and bring a baby home for the holidays.