Autistic boy heartbroken over loss of stroller
Police name suspect, issue arrest warrant
For Xavier, an eight-year-old boy with autism, the special stroller he uses is like a shelter from the noisy storm.
“He relies pretty heavily on that stroller when we go out. That’s his safe place, so he can deal with the world,” said his grandmother, Lori Patterson.
Last week, someone stole it — leaving Xavier heartbroken and Patterson wondering how she’ll find a new one for him.
When she told him the stroller was gone, she said, “He went into total meltdown. He had a really rough time. Until the police officer came here (Tuesday), he hardly slept at all. He said, ‘I’m so worried, I’m so worried.’ ”
Patterson and Xavier live in south St. Catharines. She believes the stroller was stolen last Friday morning.
Usually they keep it inside the house. She said she suffers chronic pain, and when they came home on the Thursday night she forgot to bring it in off the front porch.
Autism is a spectrum condition, and everyone deals with it differently. Patterson said Xavier is “triple exceptional” — gifted in some things, has cognitive delay in others and also has attention issues, so he needs oneon-one care.
“To meet him, he fakes it so well you wouldn’t realize sometimes that everything around him is too much” for his senses
to handle, she said. “He’ll tell me, ‘Nana there’s too much chaos in my head.’
“But he’ll have a conversation with you, and his memory is exceptional.”
Sometimes she will cover the stroller while he is in it, if he needs solitude: “The stroller, if we go anywhere — out for dinner, out for shopping — he uses it to get away when things get too busy, too bright, there’s too much noise.
“That’s his safe space.” When a police officer arrived, she said, she was able to say to Xavier, “See, she’s here, she’s going to keep us safe. We’re OK. Then he actually slept that
night, that was good.”
Through Facebook, several people responded saying they had seen a man pushing what looked like the stroller, with items inside it. It’s like a jogging stroller and can hold up to 90 kilograms.
A new stroller can cost between $1,000 (U.S.) and $3,000, Patterson said, though buying a used one is an option if she can find one.
Patterson started a GoFundMe page hoping to raise the money to buy another stroller but admitted “It’s a really strange concept to ask people you don’t know to pay for something.”
If the old one is recovered, she said, “Now that I’ve heard where it’s been and what happened to it I’m not sure if I even want it back because I don’t know how I can clean it.
“It’s a pandemic, who knows what it’s been exposed to. I know it sounds crazy, because I need a stroller.”
For now, Xavier will stay home until she can get another stroller.
“We can go in the car, but he’s not going to want to go out anywhere. We won’t be walking downtown like we normally do,” Patterson said.
On Thursday, police issued an arrest warrant for Kristian Adam Smith, 44, of no fixed address. He will face a charge of theft under $5,000.
He is described as white with a “unique” facial tattoo of a bird. He is five-foot-seven with a slender build, weighing about 150 pounds. He has scruffy black and grey facial hair, brown eyes and black and grey medium-length wavy hair.
Police said Smith’s location is unknown, but he has ties to St. Catharines.
They ask anyone with information to contact investigators at 905-688-4111 and ask for dispatch.