Man who stole car, abducted kids from Wichita mother airing up tires enters plea
A Wichita man who stole a mother’s car with her kids inside after helping her air up a tire at a south-side QuikTrip last fall has pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated endangering a child and one count of theft.
Tyler M. Kirkhart, 31, entered the plea Tuesday after initially denying involvement in the car theft and abduction. He is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 9 by Sedgwick County District Judge Christopher Magana, said Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.
Wichita police have said the 26-year-old mother was at the 31st and Seneca gas station trying to air up the tires on her 2015 Chevy Cruze shortly before 4 p.m. Nov. 7, 2022, but struggled to remove one of the valve stem caps. Kirkhart helped her unscrew the difficult cap when she asked, according to an affidavit released by the court.
But “then he ran to the driver’s side of the vehicle, got in, and drove off,” the affidavit says.
Her infant son and 3-year-old daughter were in car seats in the back seat.
Police quickly found her car in the 3500 block of South St. Francis using the car’s GPS tracker. It was parked and running and the children were in the backseat unharmed, but Kirkhart was gone, the affidavit says.
He was arrested within a few hours in the 700 block of West Lockwood, about 3 1/2 miles from where he abandoned the mother’s car. In a police interview, he claimed innocence even after police showed him security photographs of him at the QuikTrip, the affidavit says.
Kirkhart previously pleaded not guilty to the felony charges.
