Mom Allegedly Led Her Family in a Theft—Then Left Her Daughters Behind While Fleeing Police
Police Say a Mother Led Her Family in a Theft—Then Abandoned Her Daughters While Trying to Escape
Mom Drove Family to Steal, Then Abandoned Her Daughters to Escape Police
Chapter I: Chaos in the Walmart Parking Lot
The police radio crackled to life on a freezing January afternoon in Washington, Illinois, broadcasting an urgent alert that immediately set Tazewell County Sheriff’s deputies into motion. What was initially reported as a routine retail theft in progress at the local Walmart was rapidly escalating into a high-stakes, multi-jurisdictional police pursuit.
A gray Kia sedan was idling near the store’s main entrance, serving as the getaway hub for a group of young women who had entered the retail giant with empty backpacks. Store loss prevention personnel had been monitoring the group on closed-circuit television as they selected merchandise, attempted to bypass register terminals, and made a bee-line for the exits.
When squad cars pulled into the shopping center with emergency lights flashing, the driver of the Kia made a split-second decision that shattered all notions of familial loyalty.
Rather than waiting for her passengers or attempting to help her young relatives navigate the approaching officers, the driver—later identified as Malikica Higgins—floored the accelerator. The sedan lurched forward, bouncing violently as it mounted the curb, tore across an open grassy field, and merged onto the main thoroughfare.
Deputies gave chase, but the fleeing vehicle accelerated past 100 miles per hour, blowing through busy red lights at major intersections and endangering dozens of civilian motorists. Recognizing that continuing the high-speed pursuit through heavy traffic posed an unacceptable risk of lethal harm to the public, the primary officer made the tactical call to terminate the chase.
“Vehicle went through the red light at College… speed over 100,” the deputy announced over the radio. “Pursuit terminated.”
The getaway car slipped away into the distance, heading toward nearby Peoria. But while the driver had escaped the immediate perimeter, she had left behind three young women—including her own daughters—stranded in the freezing parking lot, holding bags of unpurchased items and facing the full weight of incoming criminal charges.
Chapter II: Stranded in the Cold
Back in the retail complex, deputies swarmed the area to secure the remaining suspects. Inside the store, officers detained twenty-two-year-old Ronisha Dunigan, who was found wandering near the front entrance carrying a bag containing merchandise and another individual’s identification card. Meanwhile, outside in the parking lot, deputies intercepted two nineteen-year-old women—Brianna Buntley and Kamaya Gibbons—walking briskly across the asphalt in sub-zero temperatures.
The dynamic on the scene was instantly surreal. As handcuffs clicked into place, the young women expressed a mix of sheer panic, confusion, and growing indignation toward the driver who had left them behind.
“Why am I here today? I don’t have nothing to do with that!” Ronisha exclaimed as a deputy guided her toward a patrol vehicle. “I came in here to use the phone! Somebody just gave me ten dollars, that’s what’s in my hand!”
“Where did the people you came with go?” the officer asked, adjusting his body camera.
“I don’t know where they went, but they left me!” Ronisha pleaded, her voice rising in frustration. “I’m from Peoria. I came out here with some people. I wasn’t driving! If anything, they need to come too… I ain’t gonna go to jail for nobody!”
When pressed about who had brought her to the Washington Walmart, Ronisha revealed the family connection. She explained that she had traveled from Peoria with her relatives, including Kamaya and Kamaya’s mother, Malikica.
As deputies searched her belongings, they discovered an empty backpack containing price tags and items previously taken from another nearby store, along with an ID card belonging to Kamaya. When asked why she was carrying an empty bag into a department store if she had no intention of taking merchandise, Ronisha stumbled over her words before admitting the truth.
“I ain’t gonna lie to you… I did come with them,” she confessed nervously. “They were like, ‘Come on.’ I was trying to get me some clothes because I hop from house to house. But I got scared and didn’t take anything!”
Outside, the deputy escorting the other two young women couldn’t hide his amazement at the driver’s actions. “The one I was chasing went through the field… like Dukes of Hazzard,” he remarked to another officer. “They ditched her. They left her right here.”
Chapter III: The Mobile Payment Confusion
As deputies moved the suspects into patrol vehicles to organize the investigation, a second narrative began to emerge from nineteen-year-old Brianna Buntley. Sitting in the back of a squad car, Brianna vehemently denied that she had attempted to commit retail theft, pointing to a severe platform misunderstanding regarding a popular financial application.
“I paid with my Affirm account!” Brianna insisted to the officer, shaking her head in frustration. “My phone went dead right after I scanned it! I did not know it didn’t go through until you stopped me!”
Brianna explained that she had brought a cart full of items to a self-checkout terminal, opened the Affirm application on her smartphone, and attempted to scan a barcode at the register. When the door greeter asked to see a paper receipt as she exited, Brianna handed back her store card and walked out, assuming the digital transaction had processed seamlessly.
“If I was stealing, I would have overdone my stuff defending myself!” Brianna argued. “I gave him the card with no hesitation because I paid with my Affirm! My phone went dead right when I did it!”
The investigating officer, however, stepped in to explain the technical flaw in her story—a crucial distinction under Illinois retail theft laws.
“How Affirm works through Walmart is that you have to order everything online,” the deputy clarified gently. “It’s not an in-store checkout feature at the terminal. If you were using Affirm today, you wouldn’t go inside the store to pick up items yourself—we pick them for you and drop them off at your vehicle. You can’t scan an Affirm barcode at a self-checkout register.”
The revelation left Brianna stunned. While her attempt to use the application at a physical terminal demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the platform’s mechanics rather than a covert attempt to conceal items, exiting the building with unpurchased merchandise still satisfied the objective criteria for a retail theft investigation.
Yet, despite the technical explanation of the law, the conversation continually circled back to the single most shocking aspect of the afternoon: the getaway driver’s complete abandonment of the group.
Chapter IV: “My Mom Ain’t Never Left Me Like That”
Standing in the cold near the patrol cars, the reality of their situation fully set in for the young women. As deputies filled out paperwork, the suspects began piecing together how swiftly their afternoon trip had descended into a criminal disaster.
“How did you get here today?” an officer asked one of the daughters.
“My mom… the same person you chased in that gray car,” she replied quietly. “She brought us all here today.”
“And she ditched all of you here?” the officer asked, incredulous. “Why? Does she have an active warrant or something?”
“I don’t know! I think so!” the daughter responded. “She took my sister because my sister was outside in the car with her. They didn’t come back in the store to say they were leaving or nothing… they just left!”
She recalled running through the parking lot in confusion as squad cars arrived, searching frantically for her mother’s car, only to watch it speed off across the grass.
“I was running around looking for her, thinking she just moved the car,” she said, her voice filled with disbelief. “I told my sister, ‘Bro, my mom ain’t never left me like that.’ We were running through the lot because we couldn’t find her nowhere. How you just gonna leave your kids at a Walmart in Washington?”
The investigating deputy shook his head, acknowledging the cold nature of the escape.
“I chased that gray car all the way almost to Peoria,” the deputy said. “She was doing over 100 miles per hour through red lights. I would never leave my kid like that. Your mom is in a world of trouble right now.”
The deputy made a firm promise to the stranded young women: while they were being cited for their involvement in the shoplifting attempt, the full focus of regional law enforcement would now turn toward locating the getaway driver.
“She ran from me, but I will find her,” the officer stated directly. “There’s no question about that. She can come turn herself in at the police department, or I can come pull her out of bed at three in the morning. If she comes in voluntarily, I’ll work with her. But if I have to go hunt her down, it’s not going to be fun.”
Chapter V: Legal Analysis and Procedural Breakdown
From a legal standpoint, the events of January 22, 2025, in Washington, Illinois present a complex study in constitutional procedure, statutory interpretation, and prosecutorial discretion.
The Miranda Warning Gap
Under the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Miranda v. Arizona (1966), police officers are legally required to advise individuals of four core constitutional rights prior to initiating custodial interrogation:
The right to remain silent.
The warning that any statements made can and will be used against them in court.
The right to consult with an attorney.
The right to have an attorney appointed if they cannot afford one.
Bodycam footage captured during the initial detention showed officers administering only a partial Miranda warning—advising the suspect of her right to remain silent and that statements could be used in court—before immediately launching into investigative questioning regarding the attempted theft and empty backpack.
In criminal defense practice, a failure to deliver the complete four-part advisement before conducting custodial interrogation creates significant legal exposure. Defense attorneys frequently file motions to suppress any incriminating statements elicited during such gaps. However, under the precedent established in Rhode Island v. Innis (1980), voluntary or spontaneous statements made by a detainee without direct police prompting remain fully admissible in court.
Retail Theft vs. Platform Misunderstanding
Under Illinois Compiled Statutes (720 ILCS 5/16-25), retail theft requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a suspect knowingly took possession of merchandise with the specific intent to deprive the merchant of its full retail value.
The statutory element of intent becomes highly contested in scenarios involving modern digital payment technologies. While handing over a payment card or attempting to scan a mobile payment app like Affirm reflects a misunderstanding of store infrastructure, defense attorneys argue it contradicts the state of mind required for a intentional theft conviction. Conversely, carrying empty backpacks into a store and exiting past point-of-sale terminals without presenting payment for items provides strong circumstantial evidence of intent.
Aggravated Fleeing and Eluding
The driver of the gray Kia, Malikica Higgins, faces the most severe statutory exposure under Illinois law.
Under 625 ILCS 5/11-204.1, Aggravated Fleeing or Attempting to Elude a Peace Officer is elevated to a Class 4 felony when a driver willfully fails or refuses to obey a police officer’s signal to stop and engages in flight involving:
Speeds exceeding 21 miles per hour over the posted speed limit.
The disobedience of two or more official traffic control devices (such as red lights).
Property damage or potential bodily injury to pedestrians and other drivers.
By driving across open fields, exceeding 100 miles per hour, and running multiple red lights, the getaway driver satisfied multiple statutory thresholds simultaneously.
Chapter VI: Citations, Release, and the Hunt for the Driver
Recognizing that the young women left behind had played secondary roles in the incident and were displaying a high degree of cooperation on scene, the investigating deputies exercised prosecutorial discretion.
Rather than executing custodial arrests and transporting the cooperative subjects to the county jail—which would have incurred significant administrative and taxpayer costs for a misdemeanor-level first offense—the officers opted to issue notice-to-appear citations.
“Because you’re being cooperative, I’m going to give you a court date,” the deputy explained as he filled out the paperwork on the hood of his patrol cruiser. “You’ll show up at the Tazewell County Courthouse in Pekin. As long as you show up for your court date, you won’t be taken to jail today.”
Before releasing them, officers issued formal trespass warnings banning all three young women from entering any Walmart property nationwide—a standard corporate enforcement policy for individuals involved in retail theft incidents.
“You are officially banned from every Walmart,” the officer instructed. “If you step foot on Walmart property again, you can be arrested for criminal trespass.”
After taking mugshot-style field photographs for record-keeping purposes, deputies arranged for safe transportation to ensure the stranded young women were not left walking along the highway in freezing conditions.
Meanwhile, arrest warrants were formally processed for the getaway driver, Malikica Higgins. Charging documents were filed in Tazewell County Circuit Court detailing counts of Aggravated Fleeing and Eluding, Reckless Conduct, and Retail Theft.
Chapter VII: Aftermath and Lessons from the Roadside
The dramatic incident in Washington, Illinois offers stark lessons regarding personal accountability, the complexities of modern retail technology, and the legal consequences of fleeing from law enforcement.
In the days following the event, legal analysts and social media commentators highlighted the extreme emotional toll inflicted on the abandoned daughters. Modern collegiate and law enforcement training programs frequently cite such bodycam footage as case studies in conflict de-escalation, illustrating how calm, transparent communication by patrol officers can bring order to chaotic, highly emotional field arrests.
For the young women involved, the afternoon served as a harsh wake-up call regarding the company they kept—even within their own family circle. By choosing to cooperate with deputies rather than escalating the confrontation, they avoided immediate custodial incarceration and gained a chance to resolve their misdemeanor charges through court-mandated diversion programs.
For Malikica Higgins, the decision to press the gas pedal transformed a routine shoplifting ticket into a major felony indictment carrying potential state prison time. As law enforcement officials repeatedly emphasize, attempting to outrun a police vehicle on public highways multiplies legal consequences exponentially; while a car may temporarily outrun a single patrol unit, it can never outrun the police radio network or the judicial process.
As court proceedings move forward in Tazewell County, the case stands as an astonishing testament to how quickly a family outing can unravel—and a sobering reminder that when the police lights turn on, true loyalty is tested in the blink of an eye.
