Crime & Safety

Man on Trial for Kidnapping Toddler While Carjacking SUV

As a mother screamed for her crying child, this man is accused of running over her foot to get away.

A Mission Viejo man accused of carjacking an SUV on Golf Drive with a toddler inside from an Aliso Viejo garage faces trial Wednesday.

James Christopher Corr, 35, of Mission Viejo, is accused of 12 felonies and faces a maximum life sentence.

Prosecutors say Suzanne C. walked back into her home on Oct. 15, 2011 to grab a sippy cup after buckling her 2-year-old son in and securing her Saint Bernard in the caged-off rear area of her Volvo SUV. She was seven months pregnant at the time.

With the mother inside the home, Corr is accused of opening the unlocked door and getting inside the driver's seat. The mother came out screaming for her crying son and attempted to grab him from the side door.

Meanwhile Corr is accused of backing quickly out of the garage, leaving skid marks and running over the mother's foot, then crashing into a neighbor's garage door, causing the open rear door next to the crying toddler to break and hang off.

A neighbor who saw what happened gave chase in her car, prosecutors say. Corr is accused of speeding and driving erratically and running a red light as he tried to get away.

With the engine still running and the car in gear, Corr is accused of jumping out of the vehicle that narrowly avoided a tree before coming to rest up a curb in an adjoining neighborhood. The neighbor stopped to help the two-year-old.

Corr is then accused of fleeing on foot through neighborhood back yards, eventually finding pruning shears he used to remove the screen from a sliding door. He failed to pry open the door, prosecutors say, causing him to run again until Orange County Sheriff's Department deputies spotted him and eventually arrested him.

Corr is accused of having a stolen credit card from an earlier car burglary in his pants pocket when he was arrested.

Corr is accused of:

  • first degree robbery
  • aggravated assault
  • carjacking
  • kidnapping
  • kidnapping during the commission of a carjacking
  • kidnapping child under 14 years old
  • child abuse
  • child stealing
  • second degree vehicle burglary
  • hit and run with injury
  • first degree residential burglary
  • vandalism over $400
  • one misdemeanor count of resisting an officer


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