Woman says she left keys in car that was stolen, involved in fatal crash in Dayton

Randa Harris said she is looking to God to help her deal with the ferocious wreck late Wednesday night in Dayton that killed two people and injured two others in a car one of them stole from her.

>> 2 killed, 2 injured when car slams into pole in Dayton

Harris said she must have inadvertently left her keys in her car, which was locked.

“I feel very bad, especially with my keys,” Harris told News Center 7’s Sean Cudahy on Thursday afternoon. “If my keys had not been there, maybe my car wouldn’t have been stolen and maybe those children wouldn’t be, you know, passed away.”

Harris said her son identified one of the people in the car -- a male -- who stole Harris’s car from her residence on Euclid Avenue in Dayton.

A white sedan was found later on Hoover Avenue at Graystone Drive, crumpled against a pole. Dayton police said speed was a factor in the crash.

Neither police nor the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office has released the names of the people in the car. The two people killed have been identified only as a male and female in their early 20s, according to police. There has been no word about the conditions of the other two people in the car.

Thursday afternoon, Harris said her car keys must have slipped from her pocket when she went into it to get some insurance papers. She said she set the locks before getting in and got out of the car without checking again.

She realized what happened when her son asked her where her car keys were in the house.

“Oh no, no, no, no! This is my fault,” Harris said. “Them kids stole my car. I left those keys in that car.”

Unfortunately, Harris said, there are people in the neighborhood who walk the streets looking in vehicle windows.

“But you never think that somebody’s going to break the windows out,” she said. “God knows it wasn’t something I intended.

“If I had been more careful maybe they wouldn’t have noticed my keys on the seat.”

Harris said she hopes the others in car survive the accident and the thief is prosecuted.

“I just ask God to help the families,” she said.

We will update this developing report as we learn more. Stay with whio.com for breaking news.