An Ohio woman has pleaded guilty to two federal counts of kidnapping a minor in the case of a set of twin infants who were in the back seat of a car she stole from outside a Columbus pizza restaurant.
The prosecution and defendant Nalah T. Jackson, 25, agreed to a recommended sentence of 20 years in prison.
“There is no greater responsibility than protecting our youth,” said U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker. “This community watched in horror as Nalah Jackson preyed on two vulnerable babies. Today, she admitted her crime and agreed to spend 20 years in prison for her actions.”
Jackson walked out of Donatos Pizza in Columbus at about 10 p.m. on December 19, 2022, and drove away in a black Honda Accord that had been left running in the parking lot, as CrimeOnline reported. Inside were Ky’air and Kason Thomas, then 5 months old, whose mother had run inside to pick up a delivery order.
Police launched a desperate search for the car and the two babies. Hours later, at about 4 a.m., Jackson abandoned Ky’air in a parking lot at Dayton International Airport — 70 miles from where the boys were taken — and left Ohio for Indianapolis, where she pulled into a Papa John’s Pizza at about 8 a.m. on December 20 and abandoned the stolen car — with baby Kason still inside.
Kason remained in the back seat of the car for two and a half days, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio.
On the night Jackson abandoned the car and the baby, she encountered an Indianapolis outside a gas station and sold some toys to her. When the woman got home, she saw media posts about the kidnapping and recognized the woman she’d met as the kidnapper. Because she’d exchanged phone numbers with Jackson, she and her cousin arranged to meet to try to confirm her identity.
“On Dec. 22, the women met up with Jackson, whom they traced to a local residence through a phone number Jackson had previously used to call one of them,” the US Attorney’s Office said. “The women confirmed that Jackson was the same person identified as the kidnapping suspect and drove her to several shopping centers in Indianapolis, all-the-while surreptitiously attempting to contact law enforcement in Columbus and Indianapolis.”
They were eventually successful, and Jackson was arrested. But the two women weren’t done. They found a bus schedule Jackson left in their car and began focusing on the bus route. With a winter storm blowing in, they were nearly ready to give up when they pulled into a pizza restaurant to get food before heading home — and noticed a black Accord in the parking lot of the nearby Papa John’s.
They took the baby out of the car and found two off-duty Indianapolis police officers at the other pizza restaurant and alerted them. Kason was treated for dehydration, heart abnormalities because of the dehydration, extreme diaper rash, and other skin problems from sitting in his soiled diaper for nearly three days.
The story had a tragic ending, however, when Ky’air was rushed to the hospital on January 28, 2023, and pronounced dead shortly after his arrival. A coroner found no evidence of “trauma, foul play, abuse, or neglect,” CrimeOnline reported. The Franklin County Coroner’s Office ruled the death sudden unexplained infant death with conditions. The conditions were described in the report has being left on an adult bed with excessive bed covers and pillows.
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[Featured image: Nalah Jackson and Ky’air and Kason Thomas/Columbus Division of Police]
