One of the twins abducted from their mother’s car in Ohio in December has died just a month after the two were found.
Columbus police said officers were dispatched to the home shortly before 11 p.m. Saturday after a report that six-month-old baby Kyre Thomas was not breathing.
Paramedics took him to Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead less than an hour later.
Kyair and his brother Kason were kidnapped from their mother’s car in Columbus when it was stolen while she rushed to a pizza place to pick up an order from Door Dash.
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 another stolen car outside another pizzeria.
Kyre Thomas, who was abducted 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 kidnapped from their mother’s car in Columbus when it was stolen while she rushed to a pizzeria
Although police are investigating Kyair’s death, which occurred in the early hours of January 29, a family member told local broadcaster ABC6 that it was an accident and caused by suffocation.
Columbus police said an autopsy is scheduled for Monday. There are no further details about the child’s death.
“I’m really in a state of shock. I literally, really am. I’m devastated, I’m hurt,” said Wilma Booker, the twins’ mother’s aunt.
Booker said the family is devastated and still trying to come to terms with Keir’s death. She told ABC6 about the whirlwind the twins’ mother, Wilhelmina Barnett, has been through.
“She’s doing really bad right now,” Booker said. “Even though I wasn’t right there when it happened, my kids were there. [She] was feeding the babies and one of them started to choke on the milk and this happened.
“She immediately called 911, trying to do chest compressions and CPR stuff to get the baby back at that time. It was just an accident that happened while feeding the babies and that was it.
Although police are investigating Kyair’s death, a family member told local news outlet ABC6 that it was an accident and caused by an eating accident
Cason Thomas, who is just five months old, was found on December 22. He is being held by an Indianapolis police officer
Staff members at Donatos Pizza told Columbus police that Nala Jackson (pictured), 24, had left the restaurant when Barnett entered. She appeared in court last week for their abduction but did not confess
Kyai and Kason’s disappearance set off a nationwide Amber Alert and attracted national attention.
The two babies were taken from their mother’s idling car around 9:45 p.m. on Dec. 19 when she went inside a Donatos Pizza in Columbus to pick up an order from the counter.
When she turned around, her car was gone, 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 just grabbing this pizza. I was right here, I didn’t even enter the building,” she said.
The alleged abductor of the two babies, Nale Jackson, 24, who is also a known child abuser, was arrested on Thursday. She is charged with two counts of kidnapping
Wilhelmina Barnett pictured with her twin sons
Kyair was found early Dec. 20 in the Dayton International Airport parking lot following an Amber Alert. Someone found the child in a seat between the cars.
After the second boy, Cason, was found Dec. 22 outside another Papa John’s pizza restaurant, Nale Jackson, 24, was arrested on kidnapping charges. She was not with the boy when she was arrested.
She was charged with two federal counts of kidnapping a minor and appeared in federal court in Columbus last week but pleaded not guilty.
Employees at the original Columbus pizzeria said a homeless man, now understood to be Jackson, was inside the restaurant but left when Barnett went inside, Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant said.
Jackson has a criminal record and is accused of abusing his own child. In June 2021, she pleaded guilty to child endangerment charges after her 11-month-old fell down a flight of stairs, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
She was then sentenced to 13 days in jail and placed on probation for two years.
In September 2021, Jackson went to the National Youth Advocacy Center for supervised visitation with her children, but ran away and crashed a stranger’s car, police said.