Shut Up and Dribble

 The Christmas Miracle -one of the dozens that occurred…did you miss it..no worry, there were, are, and will be others..but you gotta look..

Many probably did not even notice it.  For some, it was unimportant.  But for a few, it was a miracle, as a 5-month-old baby was found.  And on Christmas eve.  Kason Thomas, three days earlier, along with his twin brother Ky’air, was kidnapped from a parking lot in Columbus.  His brother was found in a car seat in the parking lot of Dayton International Airport on Tuesday, Dec. 20.  Days passed, and searches continued, but no sight of little Kason.  Then, on Thursday, 175 miles away, police officers were tipped that the baby may be in a car in the parking lot of Papa Johns's.  The miracle was the strange interactions between the kidnapper and a perfect stranger.  It was reported that Kyair was found in a parking lot at Dayton International Airport, some hours later, Shyann Delmar bought some toys from a woman hanging out at a northwest Indianapolis gas station.  The exchange led to Delmar taking the woman to a nearby store.  But something just did not seem right with Delmar. Delmar, having gotten the woman’s phone number to buy more toys.  She had secretly taken a video of the woman she shared with her cousin, Mecka Curry. After viewing the tap, the women realized they were seeing the kidnapping suspect featured in all the news.

 Here is the story as it appears in the Indianapolis Star, written by Sarah Nelson:

 Delmar and the woman had exchanged phone numbers during their car ride, and later Wednesday, Delmar said, she got a call from "Mae" about purchasing more items. Delmar waited to answer the call, unsure what to do with her newfound information. But on Thursday morning, she called her back about the purchases. They arranged to meet at a residence, and Delmar, convinced by then that the woman was the suspect on the news, brought Curry with her.

Delmar and Curry said they devised a plan to take the woman to the store and call the police to arrest her there so they wouldn’t be traced as the people who called her in. First, the cousins called the Columbus police, who told them to call the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. When they called the Indianapolis police, the women struggled to get the point across that they believed Jackson was in their car.

They got frustrated and hung up and took the woman to several more stores hoping she would shoplift and draw authorities' attention. They worried taking her to a police station might cause her to run.

Curry said throughout the shopping trips, she made calls to detectives, trying to relay all the information she received from her cousin about their belief "Mae" was the suspected kidnapper.

At one point, the police called while the women were in the car, the cousins said. Not wanting to tip off the woman, Curry said she pretended to be talking to a friend and indicated they were driving on I-65 south. The women said police found their car and conducted a traffic stop. "Mae" at that point went quiet, the women said. Curry said a police officer initially seemed skeptical about whether it was Jackson and said they should take her to a shelter.  

Curry said she showed police a screenshot of Jackson’s mugshot, and after comparing the woman in the car, the officer decided she did, in fact, appear to be Jackson and took her into custody about 2 p.m. Thursday.  

“At that point, that was a relief,” Curry said.  

The cousins' actions leading to the traffic stop were commended by detectives in Columbus investigating the case.

"You guys did fantastic," a detective wrote in an email, reviewed by IndyStar that Curry received at 3:33 p.m. Thursday. "Because of your help we are so much closer to finding that baby."

Nearly two hours before police announced Jackson's arrest, Curry posted to Facebook: SHE IS IN CUSTODY, AND THE BABY IS NOT FOUND.

The search for the missing Columbus child, baby Kason

Aware that temperatures were about to plunge into the subzero territory, the cousins knew they had to turn their attention to finding the baby. They found their first clue in the back seat: "Mae" had left behind a bus schedule.

Since the stolen Honda that Jackson is accused of driving also needed to be included, they decided to trace the bus route and look for vehicles covered in snow that would indicate the car had stayed the same for a while. At that point, a dangerous winter storm was on the brink of reaching Indianapolis, and snow had started falling.

The first stop was 16^th Street, then they drove to a shopping center in Speedway and checked out several cars there without success.

The women were about to give up, they said, and were getting hungry. They saw a Papa John's on Indiana Avenue and were thinking about getting food when they saw a Honda in a parking lot covered in snow.

Curry said she ran to the car and saw the baby's legs in the back seat and the baby’s face in the rear-view mirror, and her heart began racing, knowing this had to be the vehicle. The back car door was locked, and she feared the worst after hearing no sound. Delmar said she saw a couple officers inside a Blaze Pizza nearby and rushed to tell them about the baby.

"We've been alerted that the missing child may be located over here at the vehicle at 10th and Indiana," an officer is heard saying at about 6:40 p.m. in police radio communications.

Seconds later, "We have custody of the child that's missing."

As officers relay the information to dispatchers, women can be heard in the background screaming with relief.

“At that point, we didn’t believe we really did this. We really did the unthinkable,” Curry said.

Indianapolis police announced on Twitter at 9:24 p.m. Thursday the child had been found. Accompanying the tweet was a photo of Sgt. Shawn Anderson holding baby Kason inside Papa Johns's.

 

The next day temperatures dropped to -8 degrees.  The child would have been frozen to death if this miracle had not occurred.  But consider, this 5-month child had been in this car for 2 days before being discovered.  

If you’ve been looking for a miracle ..here is one.. And know what, there were more than 2 dozen other miracles over the past week…do your own search…remember. Seek, and you shall find.