Two thieves who stole a car this week found an 8-year-old in the back seat, so they decided to drop the boy off at school before making off with the vehicle.

A mother in Norfolk, Va., called the police on Wednesday morning after finding her car stolen from her work parking lot. “The mom ran into work to take care of a few things and left the car running with the music on,” Norfolk police spokeswoman Melinda Wray told People.

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According to the Virginian-Pilot, the boy’s mother, who works for the U.S. Postal Service, has to be at work a half-hour before her son’s school starts, so she often lets him stay inside the vehicle to listen to the radio while she begins her work day.

After the boy’s mother reported the car missing, police were dispatched to find the 8-year-old. He was discovered 10 minutes after the call “sitting in class as if nothing had happened,” Wray told People.

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According to the boy’s statement to police, two men got in the car and told him that his mom had asked them to drive him to school. “It was slightly odd to him. He was nervous because he had never seen these men before,“ Wray said. Luckily, the thieves were only interested in stealing a car, not kidnapping a child, so they dropped the boy off at Ghent Elementary School where he is a student. "The child, after he learned the true details of what happened, he was obviously shaken. But the men were not trying to abduct him. They were just trying to steal the vehicle.”

Shortly after finding the boy, police were able to locate the car by tracking the mother’s cell phone, since she’d left that in the vehicle too. No charges have been filed in the crime, though. Wray told People that the police have some leads and expect to make an arrest within a week.

Police are also investigating the mother for leaving her son unattended in the car. “Obviously, child neglect is something that investigators are looking into,” Wray said.

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While shaken, the young boy is doing just fine, police told the Virginian-Pilot. When he was returned to his mother, they said, he was all smiles.

Top photo: Getty Images





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