CINCINNATI — Two days after a stranger stole her SUV, a Cincinnati mom said she's glad to have it back but even more grateful to have her kids, who were in the backseat when the thief drove off.
"My car can be replaced," Sabrina McGee said. "Anything in the car can be replaced, but my kids cannot."
The mother of two struggled through tears Thursday as she recounted the harrowing experience.
After finishing an event at the Seven Hills Neighborhood House where she works, McGee said she decided to stop at a corner store on Mohawk Place just down the road from where she lives in Over-the-Rhine. When she parked outside, a woman standing next to the car in front of her started asking her to back up, which she did, she said.
The woman kept gesturing to her and at one point even asked her to get out of the car, McGee said.
When the woman turned her attention away, McGee said she then got out of the SUV and went inside, leaving the Ford Explorer running so her kids could stay warm.
"When I go to the ATM there were two people in front of me — it wasn't even three whole minutes to take some money out of the ATM," McGee said.
When she looked out the window to check on her kids she said she saw her SUV reversing.
"My first thought was, 'My son cannot be this silly to be messing with my car like this,' and I come out the door and it's the young lady that I was just talking to," McGee said. "She is driving off with my car and she made this face like, "Ah, in your face' like type of thing and she pulls off. And I'm like, 'Oh my God, my kids are in this car.'"
McGee said she was shocked and frozen in place for several seconds watching as the woman drove off with her children until some bystanders down the street yelled to her that the thief let her 10-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter out at a corner.
"So all I could do was take off running and go get my kids," she said. "My kids were so confused because they were sleeping and they were like wondering why — they said they wondered why their mommy put them out the car."
McGee said it happened so fast, and when she caught up with her children, realizing they were safe and unharmed, she was overcome with relief.
"Five seconds when somebody pulls off with your kids feels like a lifetime and I felt so helpless, and there was nothing I could do," she said.
The first thing she did was call police, but right after that she said did something even more important — texted her coworkers. Some of them arrived soon after.
McGee, who works as a crime victim advocate at SHNH, found herself needing that same comfort.
"The first thing my 8-year-old said is, 'Why would somebody do this to us?'" she said. "You know nobody deserves to be treated badly, but when you make it a lifestyle to do good unto other people you would never think something like this would happen."
Police located the SUV Thursday afternoon parked just two blocks north of the corner store. The keys were nowhere to be found, McGee said.
She had to call a locksmith to regain access, but once she did, she found a mess inside.
"It smelled horribly, it looked like somebody peed on the seat, it looked like somebody was living in there the past two days," she said.
McGee tossed unknown clothes, shoes and food out of the SUV. She even found IDs belonging to several people as well as keys to a behavioral health facility, she said.
She said some things were missing from inside the SUV including her medication. She said the woman who stole her car also took her daughter's new tablet and both her kids' phones, which were Christmas presents.
"You still have to have some type of integrity, some type of morale that you don't want to hurt another human being," said McGee. "If we all work together we can help each other and stuff like this wouldn't happen."
