Woman Dies After Chasing Stolen Vehicle Carrying Son

Alexa Stakely carried her sleeping 6-year-old son to her vehicle and stepped back to the babysitter's door to collect his belongings. As she turned back to the vehicle, which was running, the Ohio woman saw it start to back up, with someone in the driver's seat. Stakely ran after it, screaming for her son and for the driver to stop. During the chase, Columbus police said, she was struck by the vehicle and knocked to the ground, hitting her head on the pavement. Stakely, 29, died in a hospital Thursday morning, USA Today reports.

Police are looking for two male suspects who they said abandoned the vehicle nearby, ran past Stakely on the ground, jumped a fence, and disappeared into an apartment complex. The boy was found still sleeping in the vehicle. Stakely, a single mother, was a speech-language pathologist at an elementary school. She had a second job as a waitress and was picking up her son about 1:30am, after her shift ended. "Alexa was passionate about children and speech-language therapy," a statement from Canal Winchester Local Schools. Her younger brother Reed Swartz said he had a speech impediment as a child, per WCMH. "I think that's where it sparked," he said, "it's like she just was always loving and she always cared so much." (More carjacking stories.)