Police have arrested a 35-year-old Middletown man after a little boy wearing a T-shirt and diaper was found wandering alone on Main Street early Tuesday morning.
Police said officers responded to Main Street, near O’Rourke’s Diner, just before 7 a.m. Tuesday after a woman contacted police. She said she was driving in the area and saw a child alone walk onto Main Street, so she pulled over to check on him, according to the arraignment report.
The little boy, who had a full diaper, appeared to be healthy, but could not communicate with officers, so police began trying to figure out where the child lives.
People waiting at the soup kitchen across the street provided officers with information on which direction the child had come from, so police went looking for open doors or people who knew the child, but no one they talked to recognized him.
It turned out the child had walked around a tenth of a mile from his home alone, according to police.
Officers then contacted the state Department of Children and Families, who told them to bring the little boy to the emergency room.
While police were with the child at the hospital, the little boy’s mother called.
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Police said the mother’s live-in boyfriend, 35-year-old Forrest Henderson, was supposed to be caring for the child.
When police spoke with him, Henderson told them another child informed him around 8 a.m. that the little boy was missing.
Henderson said he might have been sleeping when the child woke up, pushed a door open and left the apartment, according to police.
Once he learned the boy was gone, he went looking for him child and someone at the soup kitchen told him the boy was with police, according to the arraignment report.
Hours later, around 4:30 p.m., police went back to Henderson’s home and knocked, intending to follow-up and take him into custody, but didn’t get any response at first, according to the police report.
Officers then propped open the door and found three children under 8 years old alone on the first floor of the apartment, the arraignment report says.
Then police went upstairs. As they waiting for Henderson, the child who had been found wandering earlier came downstairs, carrying a bottle of Raid and police took it from him, police said.
Forrest was arrested, charged with risk of injury to a minor and released on a $25,000 bond. He is due in court on Sept. 7.
