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One of the twins abducted from their mother’s car in Ohio in December died just a month after the two were recovered.
Columbus police said officers were dispatched to a home shortly before 11 p.m. Saturday after a report that 6-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 her brother Kason were kidnapped from inside their mother’s car in Columbus when it was stolen when she ran into a pizza place 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, abandoned in another stolen car outside another pizzeria.
Kyair Thomas, who was abducted from his mother’s car in Ohio with his twin brother in December, died suddenly early Sunday morning.
Kyair (left) and his brother Kason (right) were kidnapped from inside their mother’s car in Columbus when it was stolen when she crashed into a pizza parlor.
Although police are investigating Kyair’s death, which occurred in the early hours of January 29, a relative said local point of sale ABC6 that it was an accident and caused by a power mishap.
Columbus police said an autopsy is scheduled for Monday. No further details were immediately available about the boy’s death.
‘I’m in a state of real shock. I literally really am. I am devastated, I am hurt,” said Wilma Booker, the aunt of the twins’ mother.
Booker said the family is devastated and is still trying to come to terms with Kyair’s death. She told ABC6 about the whirlwind the twins’ mother, Wilhelmina Barnett, has endured.
“She’s in really bad shape right now,” Booker said. “While she wasn’t exactly there when it happened, my children were there. [She] I was feeding the babies, and one of them started choking on the milk and that’s what happened.
She immediately called 911, attempting to perform chest compressions and CPR to retrieve the baby at that point. It was like an accident that happened while 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 caused by an eating problem.
Kason Thomas, just five months old, was found on December 22. He is being held in the arms of an Indianapolis police officer.
Donatos Pizza staff members told Columbus Police that 24-year-old Nalah Jackson (pictured) left the restaurant when Barnett entered. She appeared in court last week for her kidnapping, but she did not plead guilty.
The disappearance of Kyai and Kason triggered a statewide Amber Alert and garnered national attention.
The two babies were taken from their mother’s stopped car at around 9:45 p.m. Dec. 19 when she walked into Donatos Pizza in Columbus to pick up a Door Dash order.
When he turned around, his car was missing, police said.
In a 911 call, Barnett can be heard telling dispatchers, “Someone just stole my car and my babies are in there.”
“I was right here and all I was doing was grabbing this pizza. I was right here, I didn’t even go into the building,” she said.
The alleged kidnapper of both babies, Naleh Jackson, 24, who is also a known child molester, was arrested Thursday. She has been charged with two counts of kidnapping.
Wilhelmina Barnett pictured with her twin sons
Kyair was found early December 20 in the parking lot of the Dayton International Airport after the Amber Alert. Someone found the child in a car seat between cars.
After the second child, Kason, was found Dec. 22 outside another Papa John’s pizzeria, 24-year-old Naleh Jackson was arrested on kidnapping charges. She was not with the baby when she was arrested.
She was charged with two counts of federal kidnapping of a child and appeared in federal court in Columbus last week but pleaded no guilty.
Employees at the original pizzeria in Columbus said a homeless person, now understood to be Jackson, was inside the restaurant but left when Barnett entered, Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant said.
Jackson has a criminal record and had been accused of abusing her own son. In June 2021, she pleaded guilty to child endangerment after her 11-month-old son fell down a ladder. reported the Columbus Dispatch.
She was then sentenced to 13 days in prison and placed on two years’ probation.
In September 2021, Jackson went to the National Youth Advocacy Center for a supervised visit with her children, but ran away and stopped a stranger’s car, police said.