Carjacker dumps 3-year-old in car seat by side of road — then speeds off
A Florida carjacker was captured on video dumping a car seat on the side of the road — with a 3-year-old girl still strapped in it — after he took off with the tot during his crime last week.
The child’s mom had frantically clung to the passenger door of her SUV minutes earlier as the 35-year-old suspect started to zoom off with her little girl but couldn’t stop him, said authorities in Broward County.
The creep was later apprehended, the local sheriff’s department said.
The terrifying saga began when the mom got into an accident in Oakland Park, about a half-hour north of Miami, around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday and got out of her vehicle to exchange information with the other driver, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said.
That’s when suspect Willio Petioma hopped behind the wheel of her SUV and started to pull away — with the tot inside, officials said.
The panicked mom grabbed the door of the car, screaming that her daughter was still inside, and was dragged along before eventually falling to the ground, authorities said.
Footage shows Petiomo later pulling over to the side of a road and putting out the child in her car seat before driving off again in the stolen vehicle, the sheriff’s office said.
Two men soon run over and inspect the child, who was eventually reunited with her mother.
Other surveillance video captured Petioma later abandoning the car by the side of a road and walking off with some items under his arm while taking off his white t-shirt and tossing it over a nearby wall.
He is then seen on video strolling shirtless, wearing nothing but black shorts and black shoes, into a Family Dollar store, where he used the woman’s credit card, officials said.
The suspect was caught four days later, on Sunday, after a tipster recognized him from images released by cops and alerted authorities, the sheriff’s office said.
Petioma was charged with kidnapping, carjacking, interfering with custody of a minor and illegal use of a credit card.
He also had a warrant out on for cocaine possession and resisting an officer at the time of his carjacking bust, officials said.
