ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. — Elizabethtown police are urging drivers to never leave children inside their vehicle without an adult present after a man stole a minivan with two children inside.
Wednesday afternoon, Jessica Carr made a quick stop at the Speedway on North Dixie Avenue in Elizabethtown with her husband.
“Sometimes if we’re running strapped for time, we’ll just come here and he’ll get something to eat,” Carr said.
It was cold and raining, so she left her two kids, 11-year-old Peyton and 5-year-old Anastasia, in the car with the heat on.
“I could see them,” said Carr. “I was like 20 feet away from them.”
Carr planned to return to her car and drive away but when she returned, the car and her kids were gone.
“It was terrifying,” Carr said.
Just seconds before Carr left the store, police say a man stole the minivan and drove away.
“It was just panic,” said Carr. “All I wanted to do was to get them, and we were just running as fast as we could trying to catch the van.”
Investigators say the man, Frederick Ruelas, dropped the kids off down the street and drove the car more than ten miles before he was stopped and arrested by Radcliff Police on KY 313.
He was charged with wanton endangerment and theft of an automobile.
“Fortunately this didn’t end worse than it did,” said Chris Denham, the Elizabethtown Police Public Affairs Officer. “This is something many people as parents do on a routine basis.”
In fact, last December a man in Shepherdsville allegedly stole a car with a 13-month-old inside while the baby’s mother was mailing a package at UPS.
Carr wants to use this experience as a warning to other parents, saying you never know what could happen.
“Even just to pump gas, we should lock our cars because someone could just jump right in while you’re pumping,” Carr said.
Now, she says her two children are never leaving her side.
“In a matter of 30 seconds my whole world could have ended,” Carr said.
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