Kids found safe after car stolen with them inside

HOUSTON – Two children are home with her family after their father's car was stolen with them inside it.

"My dad went to a watch shop and left us outside," 6-year-old Evey Truong said. "A stranger took her car."

Evey's dad left the car running as he picked up his watch from a shop in the 9400 block of Bellaire Boulevard in southwest Houston on Tuesday afternoon. A thief got into the driver's seat and took off.

Evey and her 3-year-old brother, John, were in the back seat. Their dad ran out to stop the thief, but he wasn't fast enough.

"He was yelling, 'My kids are in the car,'" said Mai Truong, Evey and John's mother. "My car automatically locks when you drive off, when he put it in drive. This other man at the end of the parking lot heard him and tried to pull the door open, but he couldn't because it was already locked."

The thief evidentially didn't realize the children were in the car until he had gotten away.

"He didn't talk to me and I didn't talk to him," Evey said.

The thief quickly ditched the SUV outside a warehouse about a mile away. After he was gone, Evey went inside the warehouse to look for help.

"I asked for help and they called 911," Evey said. "Then the police came out and my parents were worried about me and John."

Dolly Rios was the one who called police.

"It was just very scary," Rios said. "It was scary for me and I wasn't in the situation. It wasn't my kids, but still somebody else's kids."

Evey and John's mom certainly was scared.

"We were crying," Truong said.

The thief got away with the mother's purse and a cellphone. Troung said she's not worried about that -- she's just happy to have her children back.