Imagine having your child brought up to the police under the impression that the child was lost, making you go on a frantic search, but in fact, the babysitter that you trusted to take care of your child brought the child in for a ruse to get rid of it.
That’s what happened in Rhode Island when a babysitter called and told the cops in early Sunday morning that she had found a toddler wandering near a highway. According to the officials, the babysitter made an elaborate plan to get rid of the 2-year old child that she was watching because she was tired of watching the child after a night of partying.
The Babysitter
The babysitter named Daniela Peraza Lemus is a 22-year old woman and a friend of the child’s mother who volunteered to look after the child. The authorities didn’t know this fact not until after the mother of the toddler turned up on the station and identified the person who reported it.
Early Sunday morning, Central Falls police received a call from a woman that a boy was discovered near highway Pawtucket as the caller was riding an Uber. The caller, later identified as Lemus, had said that the driver of the Uber did not want to get involved, so she took the child to her apartment in Central Falls and proceeded to report the incident.
The boy was taken into Hasbro Children’s Hospital, and staff figured out that the child was 2-years of age and was healthy; there was nothing wrong except for the dirt on his feet and a small scratch on his face. According to Boston Globe, the child was unable to identify himself or where he came from.
After that, the police then started to move and called other enforcement officials throughout the area to find more information about the boy and his family. Authorities discovered that the child was not reported missing.
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The 2-year old toddler. (Photo: Daily Mail)
‘Saddest Thing’
When the mother arrived, police discovered that Lemus was familiar with the child’s mother and was supposed to be watching him as she volunteered to take care of him when she was partying at the mother’s house. She offered to take him around 1 a.m. for a supposed sleepover, but then she grew tired of watching him and made up an elaborate plot, lied, and reported to the police.
When the child’s mother was about to pick him up from Lemus’s house, she instead told the mother that her child was taken by the police ‘for no reason. Central Falls Captain Craig Viens called the situation the saddest thing he has ever seen in his 21 years.
“You put a child in a situation where the child did nothing wrong, and then you put a community in fear that this child was just wandering around and almost went onto the highway,” Viens said.
Lemus could not come up with any more excuse for her lies and that the child was probably at her home instead of the highway when she called the police to report. She is now facing a charge for filing a false report to the police.
According to state law, false police reports are a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of $500 and up to one year in jail. Lemus was released without bail on Monday, and her next court hearing is scheduled for February 9, 2022.
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