HOUSTON, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- A 17-month-old boy who was in a vehicle stolen in Houston after his mother left him inside Thursday with the engine running has been found safe, police said.
The boy was found early Friday morning in his car seat sleeping in the 1996 Jeep Cherokee about a block from the southwest Houston Walmart where his mother, Niah O'Neil, had left him and an older cousin, and gone into store to get cash from an ATM, the Houston Chronicle reported.
The cousin, believed to be a 7-year-old girl, was in the SUV when the thief, a man dressed in black, stole the vehicle about 5:45 p.m., but the girl escaped before he drove off, police said.
Terron Henry, owner of Cool Runnings restaurant, found the car parked behind the restaurant with the sleeping boy inside about 8:30 a.m. Friday and called 911.
"I'm just happy the baby is alive and they can get their baby back," Henry said.
O'Neil said she had left her son, Evan Montgomery Miller, and niece in the vehicle because it was "very, very cold, and windy, and I had just gotten them bundled up, and the heat had started running and I did not want to take them back out."
"As I am running out, I saw my niece running toward me screaming my name, and my car going down the road. I dropped everything and ran towards the car," she said.
An Amber Alert had been issued for the boy about 7:15 p.m.
Miller, who police said appeared in good health, was taken to Texas Children's Hospital to be checked.
