Man steals truck with three children inside

A man was arrested after stealing an idling pickup truck with three children inside from a Morgan Hill drugstore, leaving the kids behind at a San Jose park, then flipping and crashing the vehicle on Highway 101, all in a frenzied span Monday evening, according to police.

Besides potential kidnapping charges, the 24-year-old suspect was booked on suspicion of DUI and driving with a suspended license.

The harrowing scenario first unfolded around 6:30 p.m. with a kidnapping report called in by a man who told Morgan Hill police that he had left his children — ages 13, 9 and 8 — in his truck with the engine running while he went inside a Walgreens on East Dunne Avenue. The father told investigators that he saw his truck pull away as he exited the store.

Police issued an alert to nearby law-enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for the truck.

A FedEx driver in the area spotted the children and called 911, police said, and soon after, police officers reported finding the children, unharmed, near Hellyer County Park in San Jose.

Sometime later that evening, the California Highway Patrol responded to a crash on southbound Highway 101 south of Coyote Creek Golf Drive between San Jose and Morgan Hill. Responding officers determined the crashed vehicle, which had rolled over several times, matched the description of the pickup truck associated with the kidnapping report.

The suspect, identified as Caleb Holderfield, was taken to the hospital for injuries he suffered in the crash, police said.

After his release from the hospital, he is expected to be booked on suspicion of three counts of kidnapping and child endangerment, auto theft, and the aforementioned DUI and license violations.