The story of missing 5-month-old twins Kyair and Kason Thomas made national headlines following their kidnapping early last week. 

Despite finding Kyair early Tuesday, it wasn’t until Thursday that the IndyStar reported the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department found Kason inside his mother’s vehicle in a Papa Johns parking lot over 175 miles from his home in Columbus, Ohio. 

The IMPD shared a tweet and thanked “the IMPD officers and detectives who worked to track down the baby and suspect” and the “community members who helped in locating him.”

WWNY published a story on Christmas Day naming IMPD officers Richard El and Shawn Anderson as the heroes who found the infant while taking a food break.

Per the station, the officers said they had stopped to eat and spotted the missing Honda in front of the Papa Johns restaurant across the street. When they approached the vehicle, they found Thomas in the back seat.

Anderson told the outlet that it was as if God put the child “right in our hands.”

“As a parent myself, it would drive me crazy not knowing where my child is at, if they’re safe, if they’re OK, if they’re alive… and then, God opened up the heavens to us and almost took him and put him right in our hands,” Anderson said.

As the news spread of the infant’s safe return to his family, other details regarding the miraculous recovery came to light, including how two young Black women were the true heroes at the heart of this story.

Indianapolis natives Shyann Delmar and Mecka Curry were identified as the two women behind finding Kason.

The IndyStar reported how an insignificant encounter between Delmar and Nalah Jackson, the woman accused of kidnapping the twins, led to the capture of the missing twin.

Delmar said she bought toys from a woman at the gas station on Tuesday.

Delmar claimed that Jackson introduced herself as Mae and asked if Delmar could take her to the “hood” to buy “crack.” Delmar declined and gave her a ride to the local Family Dollar instead. She stated that she began documenting her encounter with “Mae” because of the woman’s erratic behavior, including urinating in the Family Dollar parking lot.

 

After reviewing the footage, Delmar noticed the woman looked like the mugshot of Jackson that was circulating on the internet.

Delmar ran the footage by her family. Her cousin, Curry, found a video of Jackson on YouTube and, with a quick voice match, was able to identify “Mae” as the suspect behind the twins’ kidnapping.

Delmar and her cousin devised a plan to get Jackson in the hands of the police in hopes of finding the baby.

After calling Jackson under the ruse of wanting to buy more toys, Delmar and Curry drove Jackson around. Unfortunately, they ran into issues with the IMPD, as no one understood that they were trying to bring in the alleged baby snatcher.

In a TikTok video, Delmar claimed one officer responded, “Well, what y’all want me to do?”

The two hairstylists got Jackson into police custody after concocting a “traffic stop” setup with authorities.

The cousins then turned their attention to finding the missing baby. First, they traced the bus stop route throughout the city, as they noted Mae had a bus schedule. Finally, after several failed stops, the ladies spotted the missing Honda in the Papa Johns parking lot and found the baby inside the locked vehicle.

Delmar ran across the street into another restaurant and alerted the two police officers.

The cousins documented their journey to finding the baby on Curry’s TikTok.

The 16-part story has gone viral, detailing the extensive work the cousins did to find the child.

Social media is now calling out the IMPD for omitting Delmar and Curry from the feel-good story they put forth. A CNN story that only credited the officers has since been updated.

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