A 1-year-old boy died after a woman stole his mother’s car with him inside. The woman later crashed into another vehicle head-on, killing the toddler. The boy was in a car seat, but it was not secured to the vehicle, police said.
Woman steals car with 1-year-old inside
A 31-year-old woman in Milwaukee stole a car with a 13-month-old boy inside when the boy’s mother and cousin briefly stepped away from the vehicle.
The alleged car thief was an acquaintance of the boy’s mother, Mikayla Tweedie, who was inside the car with her and her cousin prior to the theft of the vehicle, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“That day me and my cousin stopped by the house,” Tweedie said. “[The suspected driver] was in the back seat, she [is] a family friend.”
“Me and my cousin went inside to drop my cousin’s cat off,” Tweedie continued. “She took it upon herself to hop in the driver’s seat and pull off with my child in the car.”
“I called her and said I don’t care about the car, I just want my baby back,” Tweedie added. “I knew her well enough to think she wouldn’t do something like that.”
Car thief crashes, toddler killed
When the alleged car thief took off with the vehicle, 13-month-old Zarion Robinson was inside, strapped into a car seat. However, the child safety device was not fastened to the vehicle.
Only a few moments after the suspect sped off in the Pontiac, she would be involved in a fiery, head-on collision with another vehicle at the corner of North 35th Street and West Hope Avenue.
The boy was initially alive, crying face-down in his car seat on the floor of the destroyed Pontiac’s backseat, according to authorities.
According to police, the driver of the other car involved in the crash – a green Dodge Caravan – fled the scene.
Less than two hours after the crash, Zarion Robinson was pronounced dead at Children’s Hospital at 1:10 a.m., the New York Post reported.
The driver of the stolen vehicle was hospitalized for non-life-threatening injuries and later arrested and taken into custody.
The suspect was identified as Antwineesha Burse, 31, after the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against her the following day.
Burse faces a felony charge of knowingly operating a motor vehicle without a license and causing death, People reported.
