Boy found safe after mother’s car was stolen

A 5-year-old boy — taken Sunday morning when the car he was sleeping in was stolen — was found safe after a six-hour search in southwest Houston, according to authorities.

A good Samaritan spied the young boy in a bright yellow shirt around 12:30 p.m. near his mother’s stolen vehicle, about a halfmile from the check-cashing business in the 11400 block of Southwest Freeway where police said a suspected car thief took him.

The child, Richard Banahene, was wandering around the vehicle, said Carlos Marquez, who was aware of the Amber Alert when he spotted the boy. The suspects were nowhere in sight.

“He looked worried,” Marquez said. “I told him, ‘Get inside the car. I’m going to get you some help.’”

The child’s mother, Ritah Namusubo, 33, spent the morning pacing a parking lot with her 1year-old son, waiting for investigators to sift through surveillance footage and find her eldest child. She had Richard with her after a 12hour shift and she stopped by the business around 7:30 a.m. on her way home.

Richard was sleeping and she kept the car running because it was chilly, she said.

“I didn’t want to turn the heat off,” Namusubo said.

Police had difficulties finding surveillance footage of the kidnapping. Some cameras were pointed in the wrong direction, while others were fake surveillance systems. Video of another vehicle, a GMC Yukon, was eventually found. Police said it pulled up alongside Namusubo’s car and a passenger got out and into hers, police said.

“I’m not worried about the car — I just want him,” she said at the time. “Have some mercy and drop him off.”

When he was found, the mother ran to her son as he sat in the back of a police vehicle. She then ushered him to an ambulance so he could be taken to a hospital as a precaution.

It was not known how long the child had been there.

Authorities will continue to look for the two suspects, one who stole the car and the other who was driving the SUV.