Man finds baby abandoned in front of Chicago church after police say she was dumped from stolen car

By Charlie De Mar

Click here for updates on this story

    Chicago (WBBM) — A Chicago family was grateful that their baby girl was home safe Monday night.

The 7-month-old was in a car that was carjacked — only to be dumped when the thief realized she was there.

Earl Abernathy found that 7-month-old said he was stuck near Roosevelt Road and Halsted Street on the University of Illinois Chicago campus on the Near West Side. It was in the 90s the day it happened, and the air conditioning in Abernathy’s car was not working, so his windows were down.

This allowed Abernathy to hear the crying baby girl, who was dumped right in front of a church. He was on his way to work late last week when he heard the noise he said could not be ignored.

“I heard the baby crying. I threw the hazards on, get out run, over here,” he said. “The baby was like linked over in the car seat.”

Abernathy found the 7-month-old abandoned in a car seat in front of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, 813 W. Roosevelt Rd., as temperatures soared into the 90s last Thursday.

He said he had to stop.

“I just feel like that’s what a normal person would do,” he said. “I just felt like it was just a bogus situation. Everybody I saw was riding past.”

Abernathy called 911, and went on Facebook Live to see if anyone could identify the child. Little did he know that the little girl’s family was frantically looking for her.

Police said the 7-month-old was left inside the family car, which was left running at a BP gas station on at independence Boulevard and Roosevelt Road in North Lawndale, when a suspect identified as Jeremy Ochoa stole it.

The 38-year-old suspect apparently dumped the child outside the church, which is about four miles from the gas station, police said.

“We were panicking. We panicked,” said the baby’s grandmother, Karen Fuller. “We didn’t know, and I just kept praying.”

Fuller said she is grateful that Abernathy got out of his car to help her 7-month-old granddaughter.

“I was so happy,” she said. “I went to his page, and I thanked him so many times.”

Police were quickly able to reunite the girl with family. As for Abernathy, he would do it all again.

“Of course, anytime,” he said. “It could have ended differently. I’m just glad it ended the way it ended.”

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.