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CNN Live Today

Homesick 8-year-old Runs Away in Truck

Aired September 03, 2002 - 11:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Folks in Akron, Ohio, are talking about the half-pint car thief. It turns out the 8-year-old boy was simply homesick, so he decided to run away from his foster home.
Kristy Steeves of our affiliate WJW has the story that fortunately ended without a serious mishap.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTY STEEVES, WJW REPORTER (voice-over): An 8-year-old boy packed his toys and quietly disappeared into the night. He took a pickup truck from the parking lot of an auto plant in Twinsburg; someone had left the keys on the floor.

Twenty away, in Akron, Debbie Turner sees a truck swerving and thinks the driver is drunk.

DEBBIE TURNER, GOOD SAMARITAN: Before I could get that through my thought process, I seen this little head, and I am yelling, It is a boy! It's a child driving a car!

STEEVES: The boy drove through a red light, so Debbie and her 15-year-old nephew followed him.

TURNER: He just put his foot into it. And I know I had to going at least 80 miles per hour trying to catch up with him. I pulled around him, I am beeping my horn, yelling and screaming.

STEEVES: Debbie cornered the truck, and her nephew, Marquis Lucas, jumped out.

MARQUIS LUCAS, GOOD SAMARITAN: Reached in the car and turned it off. And I asked the kid, What are you doing, how old are you, where you are coming from? And he said he was going to his aunt's house.

STEEVES: Neither Debbie nor Marquis could believe their eyes.

LUCAS: When I opened the door, he was standing up holding onto the wheel so he could see over the wheel.

STEEVES: Debbie flagged down a passing police officer, who took the boy to his aunt's house a short distance away.

CHRISTINA HORNBECK, BOY'S AUNT: I was like, yes, the angels followed you all the way, and he said the only thing he did was miss his family and he wanted to come home -- and this is where he came. He said he could remember how to get here. STEEVES: Christina Hornbeck does not even want to think of what could have happened if Debbie and Marquis has not intervened.

LUCAS: I did not want to see him get hurt, after running a red light; I did not want to see nothing happen to him or he get killed or anything.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Police apparently have decided not to charge the little boy.

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