KALISPELL – A man is facing charges after stealing a car with a two-year-old child asleep in the back seat.
Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry says a construction worker in contacted 911 just before 10:45 a.m. on Sunday that a man had dropped off a young child at the Zip Trip in Hungry Horse.
A short time later authorities received reports that a vehicle had been stolen from the Hungry Horse Chapel parking lot.
The caller told dispatchers that they were going to church and had left their child sleeping in the back seat of their car while they took items into the church. When they returned to the car to get their child the vehicle and child were gone.
Sheriff Curry says the child wasn’t hurt during the incident and has been safely returned to the parents.
A Columbia Falls police officer spotted the wanted vehicle on US Highway 2 in Columbia Falls near Super One Foods. But as the officer was attempting to make a stop, the vehicle crashed into another car.
The driver of the stolen vehicle and the driver of the other car were uninjured. Sheriff Curry says the suspect was then taken into custody without incident.
Isaiah Lee Maura, 22, who is said to be a Kalispell area transient is now behind bars in the Kalispell jail on initial charges of theft, kidnapping, and criminal endangerment.
The incident remains under investigation by the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office.
