Graylin Tanner faces many charges, including grand theft and felony child abuse, for the incident that was all caught on camera.
What started as a typical Monday morning, quickly turned into a nightmare for one Sioux Falls mom.
“The mother was very, almost very hysterical about it,” John Burkman, J & K Kwik Stop owner, said. “And it’s hard to believe; I mean you hear about this stuff, and it happens on your front doorsteps. It’s a little different.”
Burkman says he was in shock when he received the call; he then rushed into work.
“It kind of shook me up, you know, I got little kids too, but it just yeah it kind of pulls at the heart a little bit,” he said.
The car was running at the time the woman was in the convenience store. That’s when Tanner walked up to the vehicle and drove it away with the two-year-old in the backseat.
Burkman says they called 9-1-1 right away.
Once the suspect realized a toddler was in the car, he stopped at a laundromat more than two miles from the gas station and dropped the child off there.
Burkman says he is thankful everyone was okay.
Sioux Falls Police Department spokesperson Sam Clemens says it is an unusual case to have a child in a car that ends up stolen, but it is something the police department has seen before.
The police department would also like to remind everyone not to leave your cars running and unlocked, even if you are gone for a moment.