Carnapper Abandons 1-Year-Old On Busy Boulevard After Taking Off With Mother's Vehicle

A carnapper has been accused of abandoning a one-year-old boy on the side of a busy road after carjacking the child's mother’s SUV at a gas station in New Orleans on Wednesday, June 29.

The suspect, identified as 21-year-old Johnathon Perkins, is facing charges of auto theft, aggravated kidnapping of a child, and illegal possession of a stolen property after he allegedly carjacked a woman's SUV at Chevron gas station in Chalmette, Louisiana while the victim's one-year-old child was still int he vehicle, New York Post reported.

On Wednesday, June 29, Perkins was at Chevron gas station in Chalmette, Louisiana, when he spotted a woman fueling up her white Subaru Outback SUV. When the woman momentarily left her SUV running to get change from the cashier, Perkins walked towards the woman’s Subaru, got into the driver’s seat, and drove away with the vehicle. However, Pekins didn't realize that the female driver’s 1-year-old son was napping in the car seat in the back.

When the woman came back out, she found that her vehicle along with her child was missing and became hysterical.

“She was screaming… ‘My baby, my baby, my baby,'” a witness who works at a nearby casino said.

After driving away with the woman's car, Perkins drove down Paris Road and over a bridge into New Orleans. He then dumped the baby by the side of a busy overpass while cars were whizzing by. Later, he ditched the stolen vehicle on France Road, WDSU reported.

The infant was miraculously found unharmed sitting near the Almonaster Boulevard overpass by a motorist identified as Brian Steward while he was headed to a landfill. Steward initially mistook the child for “an object” or a “baby doll” lying on the side of the road.

“As I got closer I realized that was a real person there,” Stewart said. “I pulled to the side of the road. Walked back. The baby started kinda crawling toward me. I called 911.”

The officers from St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Department immediately responded to the scene and rescued the child and later arrested Perkins.

“It’s an event that could have turned out really bad for the one-year-old being left on the interstate,” Sheriff Pohlmann said. “The baby could have crawled into a lane of traffic and could have been easily killed.”

The infant has since been reunited with his parents.