Patrick Brennan

pbrennan@enquirer.com

The 20-day-old infant buckled into the backseat of a Volkswagen Passat stolen from a Florence gas station Thursday evening is back with his mother after two women spotted the car at a Fort Mitchell gas station two-and-a-half hours later.

The child is safe, Florence police confirmed to The Enquirer, after the Volkswagen Passat was abandoned at the Marathon gas station on Dixie Highway in Fort Mitchell, just off I-71/75.

The Amber alert associated with the missing child was rescinded when authorities located the infant, Henry Flores, at the gas station at 2218 US-25 at about 7 p.m.

The stolen car was discovered by two bystanders almost simultaneously - Jenny Ford, 36, of Rivers Breeze, and Megan Lewin, 19, of Fort Mitchell.

Ford and Lewin approached the car they suspected was associated with the Amber alert. It was still warm from being driven. They opened one of the vehicle's back doors to confirm the child's well-being and then called authorities.

The person that stole the car at about 4:30 p.m. was nowhere to be found at the time Flores was recovered by police, Florence Police Department Commander Tom Grau told The Enquirer.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation had been assisting Florence police in its search.

Police were still reviewing Marathon gas station surveillance footage at about 8 p.m. in hopes of providing an accurate suspect description.

Surveillance video from the Florence gas station convenience store revealed the initial car theft that set Thursday night's events in motion. The suspect left the parking lot traveling westbound on US-42 toward the interstate, according to the Florence police news release.

Video shows a male suspect entering the vehicle, which has since been impounded as evidence, but Grau said he wasn't comfortable announcing a description of the suspect.

Anyone with information about a possible suspect in the case of the stolen car and infant is asked to contact the Florence Police Department at 859-647-5420.

The Discovery





The crossing of Ford's and Lewin's paths was a chance occurrence, but they combined to help end a suspenseful night for some people in Greater Cincinnati.

Ford and Lewin both pulled into the Marathon gas station at about the same time, around 7 p.m.. Ford was on her way back from a workout at a nearby LA Fitness gym. Lewin was on her way into work.

Both had received the Amber alerts via local news outlets and on their cell phones. They still weren't ready to believe that the parked blue Volkswagen they were looking at was the one.

They made eye contact, approached the car and recognized the license plate: "000-PZR."

"When I pulled in on my way to work, I thought, 'there's no way that's the car,'" Lewin said. "Then, I saw the three zeroes (on the license plate) and I looked at (Ford) and was like, 'are we seeing the same thing?'

"I called my work and said, 'I'm not coming in.'"

It didn't take long to realize what they had stumbled upon after that, Ford and Lewin said.

They cried together after alerting authorities - they knew the significance of what they had accomplished. They were instructed to leave Flores in his car seat, Lewin said, and waited until authorities arrived.

Ford and Lewin ended up staying at the gas station for almost 90 minutes recounting their story to Florence and Kenton County police, and later to the media.

"We just started crying. We wanted to make sure the baby was OK," said Ford. "We got the Amber alert on our phones... We just can't believe it."

"You're going to be on the news all over Cincinnati and Ohio tonight," a local TV broadcaster told Ford and Lewin.

Ford and Lewin didn't have an audible response. They simply smiled back.