A man washing his SUV at a Kwik Trip in Oak Creek stepped away for less than two minutes, and in that window a stranger jumped behind the wheel and drove off with his two young daughters still in the backseat. Eight-year-old Charley refused to abandon her two-year-old sister Autumn, and instead grabbed her father's phone from the center console and called her mother, saying simply, “Mom, I need you. We lost Dad.”
According to Upworthy, Adam Jorgenson had left the SUV running while he stepped out to dry it down, and reported the vehicle was taken roughly 90 seconds later. A man approached him and asked for directions, distracting him just long enough for a second man to slide into the driver's seat and speed off with Charley and Autumn still inside. Jorgenson said the tires screeched as the SUV raced out of the parking lot before he called his wife, Brittany, and 911.
Charley later told her mother she had planned all along to grab the phone and call the moment the driver left the car. When the carjacker noticed the girls in the backseat and ordered Charley to get out, she refused to leave without her little sister, a detail Upworthy's report frames as central to how the ordeal unfolded. Brittany, meanwhile, stayed on the line with her daughter, tracking the SUV's location through Find My even as she said she feared she might never see her children again.
A Stalled Escape Ends the Ordeal Quickly
The SUV relied on a push-to-start ignition, and Jorgenson had kept the key fob in his pocket the entire time. About a mile down the road, the engine cut out, and the carjacker left the vehicle and ran on foot. Oak Creek police located the abandoned SUV near a Batteries Plus store close to South 26th Street and West Ramsey Avenue, according to FOX6 News Milwaukee.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drivers should not leave vehicles running unattended and should use the key fob to lock vehicles equipped with an immobilizer. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also advises keeping vehicles locked and keys out of reach, noting that nearly 3 in 10 heatstroke deaths happen when an unattended child gains access to a vehicle.
Body camera footage released afterward showed an Oak Creek officer driving Jorgenson to the recovery site as an officer stood guard over the girls until he arrived. Jorgenson said he ran as fast as he could once police found the vehicle, and both Charley and Autumn were found unharmed. Brittany later said the family had a happy ending, even as she recalled the fear of those minutes when she didn't know where her daughters were.
Court Cases Closed Out Nearly a Year Later
The case eventually led to three arrests. Prosecutors identified 22-year-old Bobby Reed as the ringleader who coerced two accomplices into taking the vehicle, and in September 2024 he was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to taking a vehicle without consent and bail jumping, per CBS 58.
His co-defendants, Ladarius Wright, who was 20 at the time, and Bedee Usama, who was 17, each pleaded guilty to carjacking charges and were sentenced to three years of probation, while child abduction charges against them were dismissed under agreements to testify against Reed, FOX6 News Milwaukee reported. Court proceedings covered by the station also revealed that it was Wright who initially distracted Jorgenson by asking for directions while Usama drove off, and that Wright called 911 himself shortly afterward to tell police an abandoned vehicle with children inside was parked down the road, a call that helped dispatchers locate the girls quickly.
Tougher Penalties, a Rising Statewide Concern
The Oak Creek case came less than a year after Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers signed bipartisan legislation making carjacking its own distinct felony, with penalties reaching 15 years in prison for unarmed offenses and 60 years for armed ones, according to the Associated Press. Before that 2023 law, carjackings in the state had been prosecuted under broader unauthorized-vehicle-operation statutes.
The incident also fit into a wider pattern. National crime data reviewed by The Washington Post found that carjackings involving force or threats climbed significantly across major U.S. metro areas following the COVID-19 pandemic, and a Wisconsin Policy Forum analysis covered by the Wisconsin Justice Initiative found that referrals of Milwaukee County youth for serious felonies, including operating a vehicle without consent, rose 50% between 2018 and 2024, with 15- and 16-year-olds accounting for 61% of all youth justice referrals.
Oak Creek police have continued to flag vehicle theft as a local concern. In July, the department issued a public safety advisory urging drivers to lock unattended vehicles in commercial lots after a localized surge in burglaries and auto thefts, a trend Hoodline previously reported included multiple arrests during that theft spree.
