Kason’s family said the news of his discovery was emotional.
“I just dropped to the ground,” grandmother Fonda Thomas told the Dayton Daily News. “Just all types of good emotions came over me at that point.”
Kason and his twin brother, Ky’air, were the subjects of an AMBER Alert issued on Monday after a 2010 Honda Accord was stolen with them inside. The twins’ mother, Wilhelmina Barnett, left the boys in her car while it was running to go inside a Donatos Pizza and get a DoorDash order around 9:45 p.m. Monday, according to Columbus police.
Restaurant workers told officers a homeless woman, identified as Jackson, was inside the pizza place and left when the twins’ mother walked in.
Nearly six hours later, a passenger flying out of the the Dayton International Airport found Ky’air in the economy lot around 4:15 a.m. Tuesday, but Kason was still missing.
At the same time law enforcement agencies across five states were searching for the twins, community search parties sprang up in Columbus, Indiana and Dayton, where Jackson was spotted on Tuesday.
Fonda Thomas came to Dayton earlier this week and said perfect strangers joined her and other to help find her grandson.
“When we started as a group out there, there was a couple that pulled up; they had just moved today and didn’t even know the area, but they wanted to aid in the search,” Thomas said. “I know Dayton was out in full force, for sure.”
Columbus police announced Tuesday afternoon kidnapping charges had been filed against Jackson in connection to the AMBER Alert. The Marion County Sheriff’s Office also charged Jackson with battery of bodily waste, police said Friday. She was arrested Thursday afternoon, after tips from the public led to her arrest, per Columbus police.
The entire process of searching for Kason was “scary and frustrating”, Thomas said.
“We’re going around in places where we don’t know really where to go,” she said. “We’re all so tired, trying to get a bite to eat. And we’re like ‘what do we do now?’”
When she received the news her grandbaby was found safe, Thomas said she was overjoyed.
Kason’s mother and father immediately drove to Indianapolis, through the winter storm that swept across the Midwest Thursday night, Thomas said, going to get their son “by all means necessary.”
As of Friday morning, Kason was still being kept in the hospital being treated for exposure, but his family expects he will be home with his twin brother by Christmas.
“It is going to be definitely a good Christmas,” Thomas said.
Jackson is currently waiting to be extradited back to Columbus, police said Friday. The case is still under investigation by Columbus, Indianapolis, Dayton, and other law enforcement agencies, as well as the FBI, according to the Columbus police Facebook page.
“I just want to continue just to give out, from my family to everyone, we just want to continue to thank everybody for all of their support, all their efforts, and assisting us to get Kason back home,” Thomas said. “We just want to thank everyone from the bottom of our heart.”
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