Mother recounts horrific story of her car being stolen with baby inside
EUNICE, La. (KLFY) -- A Eunice man is behind bars after police say he stole a woman's car and crashed it with her baby inside.
The victim says on July 14, a man pointed a gun at her head and demanded that she get out of her car, even though her one-year-old child was asleep in the back seat.
She says he drove her car several blocks down the road and crashed in front of the Eunice Police Department.
She's been living in fear with the perpetrator on the run for nearly a month.
"He jumped in the car and pointed a gun to my head and said, 'B, get out the car before I kill you.' I didn't know what to do, so I panicked. I ran in the house, dropped to my knees and told my old man and hollered, 'He got the baby!'" the victim, Mcquita Fontenot, said.
While they were jumping into another car, they heard a crash.
"When we looked, we heard a big noise say, 'Bang.' So we got in the car, and we came. He wrecked by the police station," Fontenot told News Ten.
She says her only thought was her baby.
"I thought she was dead, but the good Lord saved her," she said.
She says when the man who stole her car and her baby crashed, he ran off the road and crashed across the street from the police station, narrowly missing a canal.
"He crashed with my baby in the car, so all the police surrounded. They came outside and when they looked, he was gone," she added.
He left his wallet in the front seat, however, and police were able to identify him as 32-year-old Caleb Edwards.
For three weeks, Edwards evaded law enforcement. Friday morning, however, Edwards turned himself in.
"I'm happy. This could have went on to someone else, so I'm happy they caught the guy, that it didn't happen to nobody else. Thank God," Fontenot said.
Edwards is now charged with armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping of a child, failure to report an auto accident, and criminal damage to property.