Officer video shows police finding boy in SUV after theft attempt that killed his mother

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — Officer body-camera video shows the moment Columbus police found a boy who was inside his mother's SUV shortly after it was stolen.

WSYX obtained the video on Friday, a day after the incident that sent the boy's mom to a hospital, where she died later.

Alexa Stakely was picking up her 6-year-old son from a babysitter at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday, police said. At one point, she placed the sleeping child in the Honda CR-V while it was running and went back inside the home to grab something she had forgotten from the babysitter.

Investigators said Stakely, 29, returned to her car and saw it beginning to back out into the roadway. People heard her screaming for her child.

Stakely got on the hood of the car, trying to get it to stop, and was thrown off when the suspect started driving erratically, police said.

She suffered a serious head injury after falling off the car and was rushed to Mount Carmel East in critical condition, where she later died.

When police arrived at the scene, officers discovered the car in the same parking lot a short distance away, with the child still asleep inside.

"I've got the vehicle; the child's still in it," the officer is heard saying in the video as he approached Stakely's vehicle. "It's just a little north of the scene."

The suspect had left the scene and remains at large.

"What's your name, buddy?" the officer asked the boy as he opened the car door. "Do you know who took the car? Who was driving?"

WSYX on Thursday learned that Stakely was a dedicated mother who worked two jobs to provide for her son. She was leaving one of those jobs to pick him up when she died.

Stakely was an Ohio State graduate who worked as a speech pathologist for Canal Winchester Schools. She was known as "Ms. Alexa" to so many.

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