Car stolen in Roosevelt with sleeping sisters, ages 17 and 6, in backseat

ROOSEVELT, Long Island (WABC) -- Long Island police are searching for a carjacking suspect after a car was stolen with two sleeping sisters inside the vehicle.

Surveillance video captured the man calmly walking up to the running car parked outside a deli on Nassau Road in Roosevelt around 11 p.m. Wednesday, getting into the driver's seat and then taking off with the 17- and 6-year-old girls asleep in the back. Their mother was inside the deli at the time, and she returned about 10 minutes later to a shocking discovery.

"She came to buy food," deli worker Carlos Caceres said. "She went to the counter to pay for the food."

When the woman realized her car was gone, she frantically called 911.

"She was frantic," witness Jim Brown said. "She was really upset, scared. She wasn't worried about the car. She was worried about her children."

Authorities say that when the children woke up, they realized that the person driving was not their mother and escaped when the car slowed down in Freeport. It's unclear if the man knew the girls in the back seat before they fled. The girls flagged down a passerby, who took them home.

About 20 minutes later, video surveillance captured the suspect ditching the car in an empty parking lot a few miles away.

"I think she should have been a little more conscious and locked the door," Freeport resident Vanessa Clarke said. "Why would you leave your vehicle unattended so someone could do that?"

The sisters were taken to the hospital to be checked out and treated for minor bruising they suffered when they jumped from the car.

Police said they were unable to provide a description of the driver. Anyone with information on this case is asked to call 1-800-244-TIPS.