 The News-Times/David W. Harple
Police said this Toyota Matrix was stolen in Danbury Monday. Two young children were in the back. The suspect crashed it into a tree. |
DANBURY — Jennifer Patrie doesn’t remember much about Monday morning, when a man stole a car while her 18-month-old son and her 4-year-old niece were in the back seat.
"All I could think was that I was never going to see my baby again," Patrie said.
Patrie, 22, and her sister, Coreena Torres, 25, live in Massachusetts. They were on their way to visit relatives in North Carolina when they got off Interstate 84 to fill up their Toyota Matrix at a Mobil gas station at the corner of Main and North streets.
It was about 12:40 a.m.
Both women were out of the car, one getting ready to fill up, the other making her way back from paying the clerk, when a man jumped into the car.
What happened next was like watching a movie in slow motion, Patrie said.
"I don’t remember my sister screaming. I don’t remember if I screamed. I don’t know what I was doing."
Patrie opened the back door and tried to free her son. Her sister, Torres, jumped onto the man’s lap in the front seat.
"I was hanging halfway in and halfway out. So was she," Patrie said.
As the car sped away — with the two children inside — the women were dragged before being thrown onto the pavement.
"I had no choice but to watch the car drive away after I fell out. Both me and my sister thought we were never going to see our kids again."
Meanwhile, a clerk inside the gas station had already alerted police. The man had just attempted to rob the station but gave up and took off in the women’s Toyota, the clerk told police.
Police and an ambulance were at Mobil within minutes.
Several of Patrie’s toe nails were ripped off. Torres suffered road burns all over her body.
However, they refused to go the hospital.
"After we fell out they wanted us to go to the hospital but we weren’t going anywhere until we had our kids," Patrie said.
Meanwhile, the man, identified by police as Robert William Turnbull, 43, of Danbury, allegedly drove to Fast Freddie’s, a gas station on Newtown Road off I-84.
There, he allegedly stole $450 in cash, then got back on the highway. By this time, Danbury police were in pursuit.
They chased Turnbull all over Danbury, as he kept getting on and off the highway. At one point, he rammed a police cruiser, police said.
Turnbull eventually headed up Morris Street off Lake Avenue. He crashed into a tree. The children were not seriously injured.
An ambulance brought the two moms to Morris Street, where they were reunited with their kids. The entire episode took about 20 minutes, Patrie estimated.
"Thank God, I started screaming," she said. "The first thing I thought when I saw my son was Thank God."
Patrie said Danbury police and ambulance crews were "awesome" during the episode.
The children, meanwhile, had bumps and bruises. The family was treated at Danbury Hospital.
"My niece has an abrasion on her forehead and bruise marks where her lap belt was over her booster seat. My son has a nice bruise on his ear where his seat belt was," Patrie said.
Turnbull faces about a dozen criminal charges, including assaulting a police officer.
"We’re not going on any long car trips for awhile," Patrie said. "At least not by ourselves."