ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orlando woman accused of leaving her 3-year-old boy home alone where he later wandered into a busy street is facing a child neglect charge.
Police responded to East Jackson Street and Summerlin Avenue on Wednesday when a man called to say he found a child in the street and that the child was nearly hit by a car.
The man stayed with the boy at a nearby dog park until police arrived.
The good Samaritan told Channel 9 via email that the whole situation made him “very angry” because he himself has a 3-year-old.
The man said he thinks the child would have been hit by a car if he hadn’t stopped him from running into the street.
As police spoke to the child, Esther Leefatt, a man and her other child pulled up in a Jeep and Leefatt told police she was the child’s mother.
She explained to the officer that she left the boy strapped into a car seat in the living room of her home while she went to go look at a car to buy in Clermont.
A report said Leefatt told police she asked her neighbor to check on the child and the neighbor said she would.
Leefatt said the neighbor later called her and said the child was missing, so she came home, according to a report.
The neighbor told police Leefatt had informed her she was going to Clermont, but there was never an agreement to watch the child. When the neighbor went to go check on the child anyway because it had been four hours, she noticed the front door was open and the child was missing, so she called Leefatt, police said.
The neighbor’s roommate told police that a week earlier, the boy had gotten out of the home and wandered into a nearby bar.
Lefatt spoke to Channel 9 reporter Janine Reyes over the phone.
She said her son is hyperactive and runs off a lot, but that she’s not a bad mom.
Lefatt said she was not aware of the bar incident. The report said an unidentified man returned the toddler home.
Leefatt was arrested and is facing one count of child neglect.
Her children are in the custody of the Department of Children and Families.