Three teen suspects connected to the death of an Ohio mother who tried to stop thieves from carjacking her SUV while her child was inside have been arrested after one turned themselves in.
Alexa Stakely, 29, was fatally struck by her own vehicle in what appeared to be an attempted carjacking in Columbus. Investigators say the mother was chasing her car as it still had her six-year-old son inside.
After almost two weeks of searching for the suspects, a 16-year-old boy was accompanied by his parents on Wednesday to the Columbus Police Headquarters and agreed to be interviewed by detectives.
While being questioned, the teenager admitted to stealing Stakely’s Honda and causing her death, then was subsequently arrested and charged with murder, according to a media release from the Columbus Division of Police.
The 16-year-old told the Columbus police that he and two friends were looking for a vehicle to steal when they spotted the single mother’s Honda.
While the two friends watched, the teenager got into Stakely’s car and was about to drive off when the mother appeared in front of her Honda, police said.
The teen then claimed that he “panicked and began to drive off, striking Stakely with her own vehicle,” the release stated.
Stakely was found by officers lying in the roadway suffering from traumatic injuries before she was transported to hospital and pronounced dead, the police stated.
The suspect told police that after the incident, he abandoned the Honda and rejoined his two friends on foot.
Following the arrest of the first teen, a second juvenile suspect was identified and interviewed by police, where he admitted to being present with a third party during the theft of the Honda, the police said in a social media update.
This suspect has also been charged with murder. The Independent is not naming the two juveniles at this time.
A third male, and the only adult of the group, 19-year-old Gerald Dowling Jr, turned himself in later on Wednesday night, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Franklin County Jail records show Dowling, who was arrested Wednesday, as having also been charged with murder.
Dowling had his first court appearance on Thursday at the Franklin County Municipal Court, where he was given a bond set at $10m.
On 11 July, Stakely had picked her son, Deluca, up from an apartment complex on the Southeast Side of Columbus around 1.30 pm.
After putting her son in her Honda SUV, realized she’d forgotten something from the babysitter.
She went back to the babysitter’s home and left the car running. When the woman returned to her SUV, she noticed it backing out of the driveway. According to The Columbus Dispatch, she ran after the car while yelling for her son before she was hit by the vehicle.
An officer with the Columbus Police Department found the SUV with the woman’s son asleep in the backseat nearby. The boy said he didn’t see who was driving because he was asleep.
Investigators said witnesses noticed two men running from the area where the woman had been hit. They then jumped a fence and ran into a neighboring apartment complex as the woman was on the ground.
Based on surveillance footage obtained by police, a group of men were looking into apartments a block away from where the incident happened. The description of the men looking into apartments matched that of the suspects who ran from the car after the woman was hit.
Stakely worked as a speech pathologist for Canal Winchester Local Schools and as a waitress to support her son.
A GoFundMe has been created to help support the woman’s son. As of Thursday, it had surpassed its $15,000 goal and raised $93,000. The woman’s son is being taken care of by family members, police said.
The friend who created the post described her as “a coffee addict” who “loved anything with salt on it and had a soft spot for trash TV.”
“She was incredibly smart and sassy in the best way. She will be incredibly missed by the people’s lives she touched,’ the page read.
Before the suspects turned themselves in, Sergeant James Fuqua said, “They know what they did,” adding he doesn’t believe the men intended to kill the woman.
If you have any information on the identity of the suspect, please call Detective Lemmon at 614-645-2558 or the Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-8477.
