Police say a video shows a suspect abandoning a 2-year old child by the side of the highway after stealing his vehicle.
Holly Hill Police Department reports that the incident occurred Thursday morning. As of Friday, neither the suspect nor vehicle had been located. Police say that the child was returned to his family after a passerby spotted him and called 911.
The police reported that “at the time when the car was stolen, was reported to be sleeping in a child’s seat on the back seat,”
The mother of the child reported that she had pulled into a driveway at a relative’s home and run inside to grab something. The Holly Hill Police Department said that the suspect entered the car in a few seconds after walking across the street. He then drove north along Clifton Avenue, with the child still inside.
On Thursday morning, the suspect was seen carrying a child out of a vehicle in Holly Hill.
Investigators from Volusia County, just north of Daytona Beach, released surveillance footage showing an SUV stopping on a street next to what appeared to be a small business.
The driver exits, opens the driver’s side rear door and grabs the child and places him on the ground.
The suspect gets back in the SUV, turns it around and drives off the other way while the child is left behind.
(Holly Hill Police Department/LOCAL NEWS X/TMX).
The police added that the child was not injured and reunited with its parents shortly afterward. They also thanked the good Samaritan for alerting authorities. The suspect was last seen driving on 2nd Street east towards Ridgewood Avenue.
The police identified the vehicle to be a “red colored Volkswagen Tiguan with Florida license plate number AJ7-9FA.”
Investigators said that the suspect was a male aged between 15 and 20 years wearing a black jacket with red letters on the front. He also wore black shorts and a white cap.
A photo released by the Holly Hill Police Department of the suspect who is still on the run Friday with his vehicle.
The police say that they are now trying to “find out the identity of this suspect in order to hold him accountable.”
Around 8:23 am, the initial theft of a vehicle was reported in the 300 Block Clifton Avenue.
