‘I have nightmares’ South Florida man steals a car with a woman’s children still inside
It’s a living nightmare for any mother. One minute, your kids are safely seated in the back of a car. The next minute, a criminal steals that car with the children still strapped in. Fortunately for one Florida woman, the car thief didn’t go very far before handing her kids off.
A South Florida man stole a car with a woman’s children still inside– right in front of her
A woman parked her car in the lot near One Price Dry Cleaning in Plantation, Florida. Little did she know that someone nearby had her car in their sights. She was reportedly ferrying from the shop to her vehicle at the time that 45-year-old Travaughn Andre Gaines noticed that the woman had left the car running outside the dry cleaners.
A moment later, the car thief was inside the vehicle and sitting behind the wheel. The woman noticed the theft and frantically chased Gaines, who had stolen the car with her two children still seated in the back.
As the car is driving off, we all notice, we all start running towards it,” Brandon Minervino, one of the dry cleaners, told NBC6 after the horrifying event. “The poor lady, she starts screaming, ‘My kids are in the car, my kids are in the car!’ I have nightmares about the way she screamed about her children,” he added.
Fortunately, Gaines didn’t keep the kids for very long. Authorities say the 45-year-old South Florida man dropped the 10-year-old girl and her infant sister off at a hotel. He then ditched the car and took the mother’s credit card to a McDonald’s restaurant nearby.
It was there that he asked workers to call him a cab. Little did he know that the hotel workers had already called the police. The authorities caught up with Gaines after he used the woman’s card at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida.
It’s a sobering reminder that opportunity makes the thief. Unfortunately for this Florida mother, thieves steal a car about every 37 seconds or so in this country. Of those vehicles, the majority are left unlocked. It’s always a good idea to turn off your car, lock it, and take children or pets with you when you leave your vehicle unattended.
