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As stepdad flees, baby beats heat

A man leaves his 7-month-old in the car to shop, then runs from a guard and disappears. The girl is fine.

By ALEX LEARY
Published August 19, 2005

	[Times photo: Cherie Diez]
	Nikki Harris, 25, hugs her 7-month-old daughter, Keira, outside Sears Essentials in St. Petersburg on Thursday.

ST. PETERSBURG - The 7-month-old girl was strapped in the back seat of the red Kia, parked at Sears Essentials on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street.

Her stepfather went into the store near Gandy Boulevard, leaving the car running. Outside, the temperature was in the mid 90s.

For the next hour Thursday, James Harris walked the store aisles. He picked up a magnetic alphabet and a fluffy pink outfit for the baby, paid and left through the garden department.

Suddenly, Harris was in a sprint, chased by a security officer who claimed he stole a DVD player. He ran past the red car and disappeared into traffic.

As police arrived at the scene, officer Brian Taylor opened the door of the Kia.

Then he saw Keira. He called for an ambulance.

Less than a mile away, Nikki Harris' cell phone buzzed in the production room at Jabil Circuit. It was her husband, but she did not get to the phone in time.

He never called her at work. Something must be up.

Nikki Harris, 25, punched in her husband's number. A man answered, but not James Harris.

"Ma'am," the stranger said, "we have your daughter."

She raced down the street. "My baby's dead," she thought. "My baby's dead."

Twenty minutes after officer Taylor arrived, a man came walking through the parking lot. It was James Harris. Taylor arrested him and put him in the back of a squad car. Records show he has previously been arrested on charges of robbery, aggravated assault and cocaine possession.

Inside, Taylor was boiling.

"It made me so mad," he said. "How could someone leave a baby like that?"

The blue Chrysler 300 pulled in the parking lot, stopping quickly. Nikki Harris got out and saw the ambulance.

Soon she was in tears.

She vowed to divorce her husband of five years.

The baby's biological father showed up a half-hour later, stopping with the same urgency.

"What's going on?" Vincent Stuart said.

"It's almost like one of those cases you see on TV, you know, kind of hard to believe," he said. "It's kind of crazy, in the kindest words."

The ambulance door swung open. The girl lay still in the burly arms of paramedic Alex Biolsi.

A small leg kicked, and tiny lips gripped a bottle filled with Powerade.

Even though it had been 98 degrees inside the car, police said, Keira was okay.

The paramedics even changed her diaper.

"He told me, "We're dads, too,' " Nikki Harris said.

She reached down and kissed her daughter, then scooped her from the car seat, held her close and kissed her again.

A police car with her husband in the back seat drove away. James Harris, 27, was arrested on charges of child endangerment and theft.

"I'm just kind of mad, kind of confused," Nikki Harris said. "I don't know what his problem is, but this will be the last time this happens."

Alex Leary can be reached at 727 893-8472 or leary@sptimes.com

[Last modified August 19, 2005, 01:04:19]