Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Morning Con-mute: Escaped Inmate Caught Napping in Granny's Car| Crime Alert 6AM 12.18.2025

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Talk about a backseat driver! An elderly woman unlocks her car door one morning only to find an escaped inmate hiding inside!  A husband caught on cam dragging his wife's dead body from their apartment complex...is finally back on U-S soil. He fled to Peru with their kids after the crime. Plus, owners of a tree lot left tree-mendously upset after their giant Santa is snatched! Jennifer Gould reports.     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Crime Alert. I'm Nancy Grace. Breaking Crime News now. A North Carolina woman on her way to work see something move in her backseat and uncovers a shocking discovery. 75-year-old Marie Steinberg finds 23-year-old Charles Babb hiding in her car one morning just before work. Bab, 23, recently escaped from the Chowin County Detention Center. Good morning. Jennifer Gould has the details. Nancy, talk about a backseat driver. Marie Steinberg got the ultimate jump scare in Edenton, North Carolina, when she went to unlock her car around 7.30 in the morning. She was expecting a routine drive to work, but instead found a literal jailbird nesting in her backseat.

The uninvited passenger was 23-year-old Charles Edward Bab, who had pulled a disappearing act from the Chowan County Detention Center just the night before. And of all the houses in Edenton to end up at, he picked the home of former state senator Bob Steinberg, who had pushed for prison reform during his 10 years in politics. Bab was not exactly blending in either. He was still rocking his prison-issued orange jumpsuit and was cozyed up under a blanket he swiped from the Steinberg's garage loft. This hitchhiker had escaped custody using a handheld-edged weapon to slice his way to freedom. Instead, though, of a high-speed getaway, he decided to play hide-and-seek in Marie's unlocked car. Rather than losing her cool, Marie used what she called her, quote-unquote, Mother Act, to keep the fugitive calm, chatting him up while he repeatedly apologized for being freezing and famished. Marie spoke to W-A-V-Y-10 News.

I figured if I was nice to him, he'd be nice to me, and I said, well, honey, let me go in and get you a coat. The desperate con actually asked the 75-year-old if she had a phone, and where's the nearest McDonald's? Where's it located? Apparently, Freedom tastes like a McDouble. The standoff ended when Bab bolted from the vehicle and fled down the driveway, but he did not get too far because Marie alerted her husband, dialed 911, and Edenton Police nabbed him just a few houses away. Bab is now facing a laundry list of new charges, including felony escape, breaking and entering, and larceny. He tried to catch a ride to freedom, but instead he got driven straight back to his concrete suite. For the latest crime and justice news, follow crime stories with Nancy Grace on your favorite podcast app.

You can also watch crime stories with Nancy Grace on Fox One and YouTube. Nancy. Thanks, Jennifer. More crime and justice news after this. A high-profile international manhunt reached its conclusion when Hosimar Cabrera, 36, was extradited from Peru to Los Angeles to face charges for the murder of his wife. Cabrera arrived at Los Angeles. International Airport under heavy guard, marking the end of a complex diplomatic effort to return him to the United States. The defendant had been in the custody of authorities in Lima since

late August, following his decision to surrender to the Peruvian National Police after fleeing his Lancaster, California home, neighbor Sylvia Perez spoke to ABC 7, Los Angeles. We haven't got justice for her, you know, so. I'm happy that, you know, they're going to get justice for this lady. The criminal investigation began on August 12th when 33-year-old Sheila Cabrera, a mother of three, was reported missing by her family. The search ended in tragedy. Four days later, when her remains were located at the base of a steep embankment within the

Angeles National Forest south of Lancaster, search and rescue personnel discovered the victim's body, tightly bound. in industrial material, a detail that would later prove pivotal to the prosecution's case. Detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau quickly identified Hossimar Cabrera as the primary suspect after obtaining surveillance footage from the couple's apartment complex. The video allegedly captures Cabrera in the early morning hours, dragging a heavy, bulky object shrouded in material, matching that found in the forest out of the residential building.

Prosecutors contend the object was the bagged body of his wife. Following the alleged disposal of the remains, Cabrera fled to his native Peru, taking the couple's three young sons with him. The children were later located by Peruvian authorities and safely returned to California to be reunited with their maternal relatives. While the Los Angeles County Medical Examiners Office has not yet released the formal cause of death, the DA's office has filed murder charges

accompanied by a special circumstance allegation involving the use of a knife. Cabrera is currently held without bail and is awaiting his formal arraignment in Los Angeles Superior Court. And finally, talk about a baby. big time heist. Kramer's tree lots, a family staple for 25 years, is feeling deflated after a crew of holiday hoodlums snatched their iconic 40-foot-tall inflatable Santa. That would leave me tremendously upset. The festive fiends cut through a fence and literally dragged the joy out of the lot,

leaving marks in the gravel where the towering St. Nick was just hauled away. Owner Kyle Kramer is stomped on how the thieves even pulled it off because it took four grown men just to hoist the massive mascot. Neighbors are reviewing security footage to help police wrap up this case before the holiday spirit is lost in the woods. Phoenix police are investigating, hoping to find the naughty crew before they can inflate their ego any further, Nancy. For the latest, Crime Injustice News, go to crimeonline.com, and please join us for our daily podcast, crime stories. where we do our best to find missing people, especially children, and help solve unsolved homicides.

With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.