Woman Allegedly Asked 9-Year-Old to Move Her Car. The Girl Crashed — Now She's Injured By Nicole Acosta

A Texas woman is facing criminal charges after allegedly telling a 9-year-old girl to move her car, which ended in a crash that injured the child.

Ladeja Pickett, 25, has been charged with injury to a child and endangering a child, according to online court records filed in Bexar County. It’s unclear if she has entered a plea and an attorney was not listed in court records.

Deputies responded to the crash scene in San Antonio just after 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 9. Pickett allegedly told investigators that she asked the child to move a car out of her driveway while she was decorating her yard for Christmas, a spokesperson for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement to PEOPLE on Wednesday, Nov. 12.

The spokesperson further claimed that Pickett, who is not the child’s mother, said the child knew where the car keys were and “retrieved them independently.”

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Then, the child “lost control of the vehicle” and “jumped out before crashing into the neighbor’s truck,” the statement reads. “The child sustained a laceration to the forehead and had road rash on the leg.”

The mother of the child told local news station KSAT that her 9-year-old daughter remains hospitalized. She added that Pickett, who was a family friend, allegedly “had no right to hand a minor keys,” per the outlet.