No charges filed in Mansfield case of 5-year-old driver

MANSFIELD, OH — The key was in the ignition, the heater was cranked and the headlights were on. Everything seemed to be on target Monday evening — except the age of the driver.

In hopes of finding her mother, 5-year-old Ameleah Kegley, 151 Ridgewood Blvd., tried to start her mother’s 1999 Lincoln Navigator at about 7 p.m.

Although Mansfield police Officer Ryan Grimshaw said the car was in gear, Ameleah had not turned the ignition completely on. The car rolled backward down the driveway and into the neighbor’s yard.

No one was injured.

Ameleah called 9-1-1 to report the incident. Twenty-year Mansfield dispatcher Evelyn Saunders took the call.

“My mom’s car backed out on accident and I need the police. … I don’t know where she is,” Ameleah can be heard saying on the 9-1-1 recording obtained by the News Journal. “I’m watching TV in my room. … I don’t know who pulled it out.”

It wasn’t long into the call before Saunders said she began to read between the lines.

“Being a mother, I began to get the message,” Saunders said. “But I didn’t want to push it with her who was actually driving the car, because I wanted to keep her on the line.”

Saunders said she couldn’t have been more impressed with Ameleah, and frequently encouraged and praised the Prospect Elementary School kindergartner during the call.

“She was totally up at the top. That’s why I asked her if she’d taken Safety Town. She knew just what to do,” Saunders said.

“You gotta get here quick,” Ameleah said urgently. “My mom’s gonna be (mad) at me.”

Grimshaw said he arrived at the scene fully expecting to see the mother, Christina Hunter, 31.

“Instead, I just found a little girl standing in the doorway by herself on the phone,” he said. “She was scared, but she opened up pretty quickly. I asked where her mom was and she told me she didn’t know. She said she came home from school and no one was there. She said she had been playing with her two cats and that she was hungry, so I made her some pizza rolls and gave her a juice box. She was pretty happy about that.”

It turned out Hunter had been taken by ambulance that day from her home to MedCentral/Mansfield Hospital, with an undisclosed ailment. Grimshaw said Hunter told him she had asked Ameleah’s father, Aaron Kegley, 26, to take care of the youngster after school, but Aaron said he didn’t get the message.

Hunter left the hospital Monday evening, Grimshaw said.

Larry Gibbs, spokesman for Mansfield City Schools, said Prospect Elementary never received a call about the situation.

Grimshaw confirmed the mother did not try to communicate the message through the school, but said there was confusion as to who she did call to relay the message.

When Kegley arrived, Grimshaw said, the girl admitted she had tried to drive the car.

“She was a pretty smart little girl, but she was just worried she was going to get in trouble about the car,” he said. “Every time I asked how the car got there, she kept saying, ‘I don’t know.’ ”

Police did not charge anyone. A police report said Richland County Children Services was looking into the incident.

“There was no one waiting for the child when she came home on the school bus Monday, according to a police report,” Children Services spokesman Carl Hunnell said. “It’s not clear who was supposed to meet the child. Adults in the child’s life differ on who was responsible to meet her.

“The child apparently entered her unlocked home and remained there alone for about three hours before coming outside and getting into the car,” Hunnell said. “The agency sought emergency custody of the minor child on Tuesday, and that request was denied by the Richland County Juvenile Court.”

An investigation continues, Hunnell said.

Things could have ended badly, the police officer said.

“This probably ended the best way that it could have, with no damage and no one hurt,” Grimshaw said. “But it would have been nice to have phone numbers posted that maybe the little girl could have used for situations like these. All parents need to make sure something like this is available.”

Saunders also had a message for parents: “Make sure your children are not afraid to call us in emergency situations. This little girl did everything right.”

Read the story here.

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