What we know about Columbus twins' kidnapping, rescue and ongoing search

Céilí Doyle, The Columbus Dispatch
·5 min read
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Kyair and Kason Thomas, 5-month-old twin boys, were kidnapped on Monday by a woman Columbus police have identified as 24-year-old Nalah T. Jackson, a homeless woman with a criminal history of child endangerment charges and abduction allegations.

Kyair, was found crying and sitting in a car seat with a quilt wrapped around him in the bitter cold about 4:15 a.m. on Tuesday by a passerby in the economy parking lot of Dayton International Airport. His brother, Kason, remains missing.

Here's what we know.

Has Nalah T. Jackson been arrested? Was Kason found?

After two and a half days, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department arrested Jackson, who was charged with abducting the twins on Monday night when she stole their mother's running car outside a Donatos Pizza in Columbus' Short North neighborhood.

Latest update from police:Suspect in Columbus kidnapping found in Indiana; infant twin Kason Thomas remains missing

Jackson was arrested by the Indianapolis police at 2 p.m. on Thursday, about 175 miles away from Columbus.

Kason remains missing. He was not with her when Jackson was arrested.

Columbus police received over 3,000 tips so far related to the case, said Deputy Chief Smith Weir during a press conference. Police are searching for Kason in Dayton, Indianapolis and Columbus.

Jackson's arrest was the result of tips received by Columbus police and police urging a tipster to call 911 in Indianapolis. Police there stopped Jackson and took her into custody. Fingerprints confirmed Jackson's identity.

More:Upset about Columbus case of missing twin Kason Thomas? Here's how you can help:

“We’re not taking anything off the table,” Columbus police Chief Elaine Bryant said about locating Kason.

When were the twins kidnapped?

The twins were left in a running car around 9:45 p.m. on Monday night, while their mother, Wilhelmina Barnett, was working for online food ordering company DoorDash, went inside a Donatos Pizza at 920 N. High St. in Columbus's Short North neighborhood to pick up a food order. Barnett said she was working for DoorDash to earn extra money to support her children.

When she turned around, police said, the car was gone.

Kyair and Kason Thomas, 5-month-old twin boys, were kidnapped on Monday by a woman Columbus police have identified as 24-year-old Nalah T. Jackson, a homeless woman with a criminal history of child endangerment charges and abduction allegations. Kyair has been found by Kason has not.
Kyair and Kason Thomas, 5-month-old twin boys, were kidnapped on Monday by a woman Columbus police have identified as 24-year-old Nalah T. Jackson, a homeless woman with a criminal history of child endangerment charges and abduction allegations. Kyair has been found by Kason has not.

Donatos employees told police that a homeless woman later identified as Jackson had been hanging around the restaurant, asking for a ride. She left when Barnett entered and is believed by police to have jumped into the 2010 Honda Accord with the twins inside and drove off.

Bryant, at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, urged Jackson to return Kason safely.

During a prayer vigil Wednesday morning outside the Short North Donatos, the twins' paternal grandmother Fonda Thomas choked back tears as she spoke about her missing grandson.

“He is just the most adorable baby … he has the best smile,” she said. “We don’t even know what else he has to show us, but what we’ve seen in these last five months we want to continue to see every day and continue to have him with us to grow.”

Is there any new information on Kason's whereabouts?

Two twin baby boys were abducted from this Donatos location on North High Street in Columbus.
Two twin baby boys were abducted from this Donatos location on North High Street in Columbus.

The 5-month-old's whereabouts are still uncertain as a winter storm moves through Indiana and Ohio Thursday night into Friday morning.

Gov. Mike DeWine expressed his anguish for the Thomas family ahead of Columbus police's press conference on Thursday.

“Our hearts go out to the family. I cannot think of anything that’s more of a parent’s nightmare than to have children kidnapped," the governor said. "Our prayers are with the family and hoping that the second child will be reunited with the family. The highway patrol have been regularly involved in this and offering assistance. We will continue to do that.”

Three Columbus police detectives are en route to Indianapolis to join in the questioning, Weir said. They are part of a team of detectives — 12 in total — searching for Kason in Dayton, where his twin brother, Kyair, was found early Tuesday.

Areas being searched by Dayton and Columbus police are being determined by tips, Columbus Sgt. Jeff Mooney said, so it's difficult to say if one or two areas of town have been the focus.

Kason was last seen with his brother inside their mother's 2010 Honda Accord with a missing front bumper. Columbus police said the black four-door sedan has a torn, temporary Ohio registration tag and a white bumper sticker in the back that says "Westside City Toys."

Columbus police issued a BOLO (all-points bulletin) alert to five neighboring states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, for those law enforcement agencies to immediately tell Columbus if anyone calls 911 and reports seeing Kason or the stolen 2010 Honda Accord.

An Amber Alert for Kason has been issued across Indiana.

Who is Nalah T. Jackson, the woman suspected of kidnapping the Thomas twins?

Police released a photo of who they believe to be Nalah Jackson, 24, at a Huber Heights gas station.
Police released a photo of who they believe to be Nalah Jackson, 24, at a Huber Heights gas station.

Over the past two months, Jackson made three visits to Riverside, a suburb of Dayton, in an attempt to contact her two daughters, according to incident reports from the Riverside Police Department. The latest visit occurred on Dec. 15.

Dominic Davies, Jackson's ex-boyfriend and the father of her daughters, told Riverside police he has full custody of the girls because of Jackson's drug abuse and mental illness.

In an interview with The Dispatch on Thursday, Davies said Jackson is "like a different person" than the woman he met and had a relationship between 2017-2019.

She had previous run-ins with law enforcement on child endangerment charges and allegations, Franklin County Municipal Court records show.

Last year, in September 2021, Jackson was accused of attempting to abduct her own children from the National Youth Advocacy Center, a protective services agency, which held emergency custody over her children, Columbus police reported.

And in June 2021 Jackson pleaded guilty to child endangerment charges after her 11-month-old daughter fell down an apartment staircase, according to court records.

Anyone with further information about Kason's whereabouts is asked to contact the Columbus police's Special Victims Bureau at 614-645-4701 or the division's tip line at 614-645-4266. You can also reach the FBI's 24-hour tip line at 1-800-225-5324.

Those interested in volunteering to help search for Kason can email the Dock Ellis Foundation at info@dockellisfoundation.com.

Céilí Doyle is a Report for America corps member and covers rural issues in Ohio for The Dispatch. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one. Please consider making a tax-deductible gift at https://bit.ly/3fNsGaZ.

You can reach her via email at cdoyle@dispatch.com or follow her on Twitter at @cadoyle18

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: What we know about Columbus twins' kidnapping, search for Kason Thomas