A half-hour after putting her eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter to bed, a mother in Phoenix returned to find her children missing. She would later receive the horrifying news that her daughter was killed in a crash while her son was driving.

Sgt. Steve Martos called the incident an “unfortunate tragedy” and said “police ran up to administer aid, and found both of them still in their pajamas.”

According to police reports, officers followed the Hyundai Elantra driven by the young boy, under the assumption that the children were kidnapped. When the vehicle veered off the road directly into a pole, authorities found out that the eight-year-old was, in fact, driving the car.

The mother was going door to door in her neighborhood searching for anyone that may have seen where her children went. After seeing police lights just a block down from her house, the frantic mother walked down to find that it was her children involved in the accident.

The six-year-old girl, who was not wearing her seat belt at the time of the crash, was taken to nearby Valley Hospital where she eventually died. Martos also stated that the driver-side airbag did deploy; however, the passenger-side airbag did not. The young boy was treated for minor injuries to his ankle.