One of the twins, who were kidnapped 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 just before 11pm on Saturday after reports that six-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 his brother Kason were kidnapped from their mother’s car in Columbus when it was stolen when she stormed into a pizza shop to pick up a Door Dash order.
The next morning, Kyair was abandoned and found cold in a nearby airport lot, while Kason was found in another stolen car outside another pizza shop three days later, 175 miles away in Indianapolis.
Kyair Thomas, who was kidnapped with his twin brother from his mother’s car in Ohio 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 as she stormed into a pizza shop
Although police are investigating Kyair’s death, which occurred in the early hours of January 29, a family member told local outlet ABC6 that it was an accident and caused by asphyxiation.
Columbus Police said an autopsy is scheduled for Monday. Further details about the child’s death were not immediately available.
“I’m really like in a state of shock. I literally am, I really am. I’m devastated, I’m hurt,” said Wilma Booker, the twins’ mother’s aunt.
Booker said the family was devastated and still trying to come to terms with Kyair’s death. She told ABC6 about the hurricane that the twins’ mother, Wilhelmina Barnett, was going through.
“She’s really bad right now,” Booker said. “Although I wasn’t exactly there when it happened, my kids were there. [She] fed the babies and one of them started choking on the milk and that’s what happened.
“She immediately called 911 and was trying to do chest compressions and CPR things at that point to get the baby back. 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 and was caused by a feeding mishap
Kason Thomas, just five months old, was found on December 22nd. He is held in the arms of an Indianapolis police officer
Employees at Donato’s Pizza told Columbus Police Department that Nalah Jackson (pictured), 24, was exiting the restaurant as Barnett walked in. She appeared in court over her kidnapping last week but did not file a plea
The disappearance of Kyai and Kason sparked a nationwide yellow alert and drew national attention.
The two babies were retrieved from their mother’s idling car around 9:45 p.m. on Dec. 19 as she entered a Donatos Pizza in Columbus to pick up a door dash order.
When she turned around, her car was gone, police said.
On a 911 call, Barnett can be heard telling dispatchers, “Someone just stole my car and my babies are in there.
“I came to the right place and just grabbed this pizza. I was right here, I didn’t even go into the building,” she said.
The suspected kidnapper of both babies, Naleh Jackson, 24, who is also a known child molester, was arrested Thursday. She was charged with two counts of kidnapping
Wilhelmina Barnett with her twin sons
Kyair was found in the parking lot of Dayton International Airport early December 20 following the Amber Alert. Someone found the child in a car seat between cars.
Naleh Jackson, 24, was arrested on kidnapping charges after the second boy, Kason, was found outside another of Papa John’s pizzerias on December 22. She wasn’t with the little boy when she was arrested.
She was charged in two federal trials with kidnapping a minor and appeared in federal court in Columbus last week but did not file a plea.
Employees at the original Columbus pizzeria said a homeless man, now believed to be Jackson, was in the restaurant but left when Barnett walked in, Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant said.
Jackson has a criminal record and has been charged with abusing her own child. In June 2021, she pleaded guilty to child endangerment after her 11-month-old fell down a flight of stairs, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
She was subsequently sentenced to 13 days in prison and 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 pulled over a stranger’s car, police reported.