A 1-year-old baby boy was abandoned on the side of a busy road in New Orleans after his mother’s SUV was carjacked at a gas station.
The infant was miraculously found unharmed sitting near the Almonaster Boulevard overpass late Wednesday morning.
Motorist Brian Stewart told the station WDSU he was headed to a landfill when he spotted what he initially mistook for “an object” or a “baby doll” on the side of the road.
“As I got closer I realized that was a real person there,” Stewart said. “I pulled to the side of the road. Walked back. The baby started kinda crawling toward me. I called 911.”
Police rescued the tot and later arrested the suspected carjacker, 21-year-old Johnathon Perkins, in New Orleans. He now faces charges of auto theft, aggravated kidnapping of a child and illegal possession of stolen property.
Johnathon Perkins, 21, was arrested on Thursday in New Orleans on charges of auto theft and aggravated kidnapping of a child. New Orleans PD
Perkins allegedly stole a woman’s Subaru Outback with her son still in the back seat from this Chevron gas station. WDSUAccording to law enforcement officials, Perkins was at Chevron gas station in Chalmette, Louisiana, at around 11 a.m. on Wednesday when he spotted a woman fueling up her white Subaru Outback.
Unbeknownst to the suspect, the female driver’s 1-year-old son was napping in his car seat in the back.
“I think he picked the wrong place and the wrong car to steal here in St. Bernard Parish,” Sheriff Jimmy Pohlmann told WWLTV.
The sheriff added that the woman momentarily left her SUV running with her son still inside to get change from the cashier. When she came back out, she found her vehicle missing.
Surveillance video from the area showed a man in an orange construction vest — later identified as Perkins — walking towards the woman’s Subaru, getting into the driver’s seat and driving away.
A woman who works at a nearby casino told the station that when the mother discovered that her car with her son inside was gone, she became hysterical.
“She was screaming… ‘My baby, my baby, my baby,'” the witness recounted.
The woman’s baby was left alone by the side of the busy Almonaster Boulevard in New Orleans on Wednesday. WDSU
Motorist Brian Stewart spotted the baby and called 911 for help. WDSUThe sheriff said that after making his getaway, Perkins drove down Paris Road and over a bridge into New Orleans, where he ditched the stolen vehicle after dumping the baby by the side of the road.
“It’s an event that could have turned out really bad for the one-year-old being left on the interstate,” Sheriff Pohlmann said. “The baby could have crawled into a lane of traffic and could have been easily killed.”
The infant has since been reunited with his parents.
