WAYNE, Mich. (WXYZ) — A mother’s worst fear became a terrifying reality Sunday night when her truck, with her three young children inside, was stolen from a gas station on Michigan Avenue in Wayne.
Watch the video report below:
Ebony Foley said she had just run into the store around 11 p.m. to grab some milk. She left her 3-year-old son and 1-and-a-half-year-old twin boys inside the truck. When she looked out the window to check on them, the truck, and her children, were gone.
“I almost didn’t believe it,” Foley said. “Like, ‘Hold on, did I park somewhere else?’ Because it didn’t feel real.” Foley immediately called 911.
“As soon as everything got dispatched, all of a sudden, all you hear is a bunch of sirens, for probably a mile down,” she said.
Watch extended interview with Ebony Foley as she talks about the moment when she realized her truck and kids were gone
Wayne Police, along with officers from Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, and Inkster, quickly responded. Within minutes, an undercover Dearborn officer located the stolen vehicle and arrested the 25-year-old suspect at a gas station on Cherry Hill Road in Dearborn Heights. But the children were not inside the truck.
Just one minute later, police received a call from a resident who reported hearing crying children behind a business on Grandview Street in Inkster. Police say the suspect had abandoned the kids there.
“They’re babies still,” Foley said. “Anything could have happened with them sitting on the side of the road if nobody heard them.”
The resident, who asked not to be identified, provided 7 News Detroit with surveillance video showing him carrying the children to his driveway and calling authorities. All three boys were found safe and unharmed.
Watch: Video shows residents finding kids who were in the stolen vehicle
When asked how she felt seeing her children safe, Foley said, "I don’t know how to explain it, I felt faint.”
Now reunited, 3-year-old Markos, along with twins Isaiah and Gabriel, are back home with their parents.
“Oh yeah,” Foley said, holding her sons close. “They ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“God is great,” said their father, Habil Nissan. “When you put your hope in God, that’s all you have.”
Police are calling the incident a “crime of opportunity” and are reminding all parents and drivers to stay vigilant.
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