One of the twin boys kidnapped from their mother’s car in Ohio in December has died just a month after the two were recovered.
Columbus police said officers were sent to a home shortly before 11pm on Saturday after a report that six-month-old baby Kyair Thomas was not breathing.
Paramedics took him to a children’s hospital where he was pronounced dead less than an hour later.
Kyair and his brother Kason were kidnapped from inside their mother’s car in Columbus when it was stolen as she dashed into a pizza shop to pick up a Door Dash order.
The next morning, Kyair was found abandoned and cold in a nearby airport parking lot while Kason was found three days later, 175 miles away in Indianapolis, in a another stolen car outside another pizza shop.
Kyair Thomas, who was kidnapped from his mother’s car in Ohio with his twin brother in December, died suddenly in the early hours of Sunday
Kyair (left) and his brother Kason (right) were kidnaped from inside their mother’s car in Columbus when it was stolen as she dashed into a pizza shop
Although police are investigating Kyair’s death, which happened in the early hours of January 29, a family member told local outlet ABC6 that it was an accident and caused by choking.
Columbus police said that an autopsy is scheduled for Monday. No further details about the child’s death were immediately available.
‘I am like in a state of shock for real. I literally, I really am. I am devastated I’m hurt,’ Wilma Booker, the aunt of the mother of the twins said.
Booker said that the family is devastated and still trying to come to terms with Kyair’s death. She told ABC6 of the whirlwind the twins’ mother, Wilhelmina Barnett, has endured.
‘She’s doing really bad right now,’ Booker said. ‘While I wasn’t exactly right there when it happened, my kids were there. [She] was feeding the babies, and one of them started choking on the milk and that’s what happened.
‘She immediately called 911, trying to do chest compression and CPR things to get the baby back at that time. It was just like an accident that happened from feeding the babies and that was it.’
Although police are investigating Kyair’s death a family member told local outlet ABC6 that it was an accident and caused by a feeding mishap
Kason Thomas who is just five months old was found on December 22. He is being held in the arms of an Indianapolis police officer
Members of staff at Donatos Pizza told Columbus Police that Nalah Jackson (pictured), 24, left the restaurant when Barnett walked in. She appeared in court last week for their kidnapping but did not enter a plea
The disappearance of Kyai and Kason triggered a statewide amber alert and caught national attention.
The two babies were taken from their mother’s idling car at around 9.45pm on December 19 when she went inside a Donatos Pizza in Columbus to collect a Door Dash order.
When she turned around, her car had disappeared, police said.
In a 911 call, Barnett can be heard telling dispatchers: ‘Somebody just stole my car and my babies are in there.
‘I was just right here and all I was doing was just grabbing this pizza. I was right here, I didn’t even go inside the building,’ she said.
The alleged abductor of both babies, Naleh Jackson, 24, who is also a known child abuser, was arrested on Thursday. She has been charged with two counts of kidnapping
Wilhelmina Barnett pictured with her twin sons
Kyair was found early on December 20 in the Dayton International Airport parking lot after the Amber Alert. Somebody found the child in a car seat between cars.
After the second boy, Kason, was found on December 22 outside a different Papa John’s pizzeria, Naleh Jackson, 24, was arrested on kidnapping charges. She was not with the baby boy when she was arrested.
She was indicted on two federal counts of kidnapping of a minor and appeared in federal court in Columbus last week but did not enter a plea.
Employees at the original pizzeria in Columbus said that a homeless person, now understood to be Jackson, was inside the restaurant but left when Barnett came inside, Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant said.
Jackson has a criminal record and had been charged with abusing her own child. In June 2021, she pled guilty to child endangerment charges after her 11-month-old fell down a staircase, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
She was then sentenced to 13 days in prison and placed on probation for two years.
In September 2021, Jackson went to the National Youth Advocacy Center for a supervised visit with her children, but ran away and flagged down a stranger’s car, police reported.
