An Ohio man abducted his 7-month-old daughter this week and was on the phone with police for nearly an hour before he crashed his car into a house in Tiffin.
Seneca County deputies broke out the back window of the yellow Chevrolet Camaro after the crash and took out the baby, who was seriously injured and had “labored breathing,” Tiffin Police Chief David Pauly said.
Both the child and the suspect were taken to Tiffin Mercy Hospital, where the baby later died. The suspect, 23-year-old Jonathan Baker, was flown to St. Vincent Hospital in Toledo in critical condition, the Advertiser-Tribune reported.
Tiffin Police said they were told about the incident by the Wood County Sheriff’s Office and asked to be on the lookout for the yellow Camaro. The suspect had allegedly told the baby’s mother he was “feeling homicidal and suicidal” and told her he had killed the baby. He was allegedly armed, the BOLO said.
An off-duty officer first spotted the Camaro and radioed dispatch and began following it. Seneca County deputies and Tiffin officers arrived and attempted a traffic stop, but Baker allegedly accelerated “and at a high rate of speed, erratically drove off the roadway through the front yard of one residence and crashing into another residence, knocking it off its foundation.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if the baby died from injuries sustained in the crash or prior to it.
The Advertiser-Tribune said the baby’s mother tracked Baker through a location app on her phone, according to Dave Lafferty, police chief of North Baltimore, where the incident began.
“I responded to a domestic,” Lafferty tells dispatch in the call, obtained by the newspaper. “The male subject has left with a very small child. He has now called back and told us he plans on committing suicide and homicide with the child.”
The mother has “her locater on him through her phone,” Lafferty says. “I think he forgot to turn it off. But I’ve been talking with him for the last half hour.”
Lafferty tells the dispatcher the suspect is likely armed because the mother located him at a gun store and that an officer confirmed with the store that he bought two firearms.
Later, Baker tells Lafferty that he’s aware he’s being tracked, and the location stops moving, indicating he may have thrown the phone out of the vehicle. But it wasn’t long before the off-duty Tiffin officer spotted the car.
The home that was hit by the vehicle received substantial damage, the Advertiser-Tribune said, but it was empty at the time and the utilities had been turned off.
Prosecutors said charges have not yet been filed as they await the results of an autopsy on the baby and further investigating.
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[Featured image: Shutterstock]
