High Point, NC -- High Point police are looking for two men they say stole a car in a grocery store parking lot Monday afternoon.
Police say they received a call around 3 p.m. that the men, who are supposedly white and in their 40s, had forced a relative out of a tan Honda Accord in a Food Lion parking lot and drove off with two children inside.
The thieves might have a conscience, though, because once they noticed the one- and three-year-old kids in the backseat, they pulled over and dropped them off at a daycare.
According to the director of the daycare, the parents told her the family was celebrating the one-year-old's birthday. They were at the grocery store to buy a birthday cake.
An adult relative was in the car watching the children when the thieves approached them.
Police have not said whether there were any weapons displayed.
Less than two miles from the grocery store plaza, Kimberly Wilburn, director at Fairfield Enrichment Center, had just put down her students for a nap when she says a parent came in and told her there was a child in the driveway.
Panic set in because Kimberly thought it was one of her own. She was relieved to learn that it wasn't.
"The children were standing right here, the little boy was three, standing right here," Kimberly explained while standing where she found the kids. "A car seat was on the right side of him. And a little diaper bag."
Her first thoughts, she says, were "how could you abandon two children? It was blowing our mind. How could you leave two children?"
Kimberly called police and it all started to make sense.
"When we asked them where their mommy was, they said, the little boy said she was in the store," Kimberly said. "It's very sad. It's very sad."
Parents picking up their kids from the center expressed concern and relief, too, as they learned about what had happened just hours earlier.
"It's very fearful that something like that could happen." Serena Edwards said.
Kimberly says she is thankful that the children are safe.
"Whoever stole that car had sense enough to drop the children somewhere that would make sure they were taken care of," Kimberly.
Just minutes before the robbery, there were two homeless men panhandling in the parking lot. Detectives believe they may have been the same men who drove off with the vehicle. The car has 18-inch rims with a star in the middle. The license plate number is ACH-7189.
Call High Point police if you know anything that could help the investigation.
WFMY News 2