Girl, 8, OK after taken for ride by car thief

Jen Lawson

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003 | 11:09 a.m.

An 8-year-old girl was found safe this morning after the sport utility vehicle she was in was stolen from the gas pump area of a convenience store on Tropicana Avenue at Decatur Boulevard.

The girl's mother may face charges for leaving her child alone in the vehicle, Metro Police spokeswoman Carla Alston said.

"It's under review," Alston said. "The D.A. will ultimately make that decision."

Metro received a 911 call about 1 a.m. from a cashier at the 7-Eleven at 4890 W. Tropicana Ave.

The cashier reported that a customer was "hysterical" and said that she had left her daughter inside a gray 2003 Dodge Durango while she darted into the store, Alston said. When she came out a few minutes later the vehicle was gone. The mother had left the keys in the ignition of the SUV.

Moments later, less than a quarter-mile away, the thief "realized the girl was in the car," Alston said. The child might have been asleep when the SUV was being refueled, Alston said.

The car thief dropped the girl off outside Skip's Gold Coin Saloon at 4680 S. Decatur Blvd. A bar patron who was outside saw her get out of the car and called 911 and the girl, who was unharmed, was reunited with her mother.

As of this morning, the Durango hadn't been found. The only description police have of the suspect is that he is a bald white man.

The mother's name has not been released because she hasn't been charged with a crime. Charges could be filed in the future, Alston said, after a police investigation.

She pointed out that a mother involved in a similar incident in June was not arrested on the spot.

Maria Door Soto left her 16-month-old son in a car while she went into a shoe store near Decatur Boulevard and Meadows Lane. The boy was found inside the car about five hours later in a convenience store parking lot.

That incident prompted authorities to issue the state's first Amber Alert.

Two weeks after the incident, prosecutors charged the boy's mother with a single felony count of felony child neglect. In October she pleaded guilty to contributory negligence, a misdemeanor.

A judge ordered her to pay a $500 fine, perform 50 hours of community service and attend parenting skills classes.

She was one of several parents charged with neglect after a series of cases during the summer in which parents or caregivers left kids in cars. However, the Door Soto case is the only one in which a car with a child inside was stolen.

Joeen Estein, a cashier at the 7-Eleven where the incident occurred, was not on duty when it happened but she said she sees parents leave children in cars once or twice a week.

"They demand, 'Hurry up, my kids are in the car,' " she said, adding that it makes her feel "terrible."

"It's just incident after incident," Estein said. "These children are precious gifts from God" but she said some parents don't treat them as such.

She thinks parents do this out of laziness "and because they don't think anything bad will happen to them," she said.