A 9-year-old Las Vegas girl is being applauded for her bravery after she got away from a man who carjacked her mother’s vehicle, then ran six blocks barefoot in the dark carrying her baby brother to safety.
Nyla Prentiss’ mother stopped to use an ATM at a 7-Eleven and left Nyla and her 11-month brother, King, in the backseat of her SUV on Oct. 25.
“I chased after the car until I couldn’t anymore,” Karen Quinn told FOX 5.
Quinn told reporters she parked right outside of the door, left her engine running and locked the door. She said a man “bad in spirit” was sitting at a slot machine near the door. He walked over to her car and looked inside, she said, prompting Quinn to confront him.
However, Nyla told reporters the Dodge SUV automatically unlocked because her mother was nearby. The man jumped in the car.
“He opened the [car] door, and I tried to grab him, and I grabbed his sweater in the door, and he reversed and kind of rolled over the top of my foot,” Quinn said. “And I was like, ‘Please, my kids are in the car! Please! My kids are in the car!’ He looked back at my daughter. She was like, ‘Mom! Mom!’ “
Nyla said the driver “zoomed” away for the 7-Eleven. She didn’t know where he was heading, but she “didn’t want to die.”
“So, I closed my eyes, and I was thinking like what I’m gonna say,” she said.
The girl then reached for the unlock button and begged the man to let her and her brother out of the vehicle.
” ‘Please can you let me out of the car? I don’t got nothing to do with this. Please,’ ” Nyla recalled saying.
The man stopped to let the children out, but he did not let Nyla get her shoes. She grabbed King and his “Binky” and started running. Nyla said she was able to find the 7-Eleven because it is on the way to her father’s house.
“I was looking for some lights and then I saw the 7-Eleven where we was at, and then I went in there and I was shaking and crying,” Nyla said.
Quinn said she dropped to her knees and thanked God when she heard her children had been found. North Las Vegas Police pursued the stolen Dodge SUV before it crashed into another vehicle on Interstate 15. Police said Mario Anthony Estrada, 38, tried to flee the vehicle, but he was caught and apprehended.
Estrada is facing child abuse, kidnapping and grand larceny charges, among others. The other motorist involved in the collision had to be treated at the hospital for minor injuries.
