Advertisement

FBI, police hunt Washington toddler left alone in car for an hour

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The FBI has joined the search for a missing 2-year-old boy in Bellevue, Wash., whose mother says she left him alone in the car at the side of the road while she walked to a gas station.

The mother told police that the toddler, Sky Metalwala, was strapped in a child seat, but was not in the vehicle when she returned about an hour later.

Advertisement

A massive search of the surrounding 20-block area on Sunday afternoon produced nothing, and authorities on Monday were following up on other leads and re-interviewing the mother, who was not identified.

‘Search and rescue is confident that the child is nowhere in this area,’ Carla Lafrate, Bellevue police spokeswoman, told KING-5 television in nearby Seattle. Police put out a reverse 911 call to all homes in the area, but that failed to provide any immediate leads either.

KING-5 reported that the parents, who are going through a divorce, were cited in King County, Wash., in 2009 for leaving a child unattended in a car -- an incident that came to light when a passerby spotted the child and called police. Both parents were required to attend parenting courses as part of the disposition of that case, the station reported.

The mother, a resident of Redmond, Wash., told police that she took her 4-year-old daughter with her when she walked to the gas station about a mile a way and called a friend. No gas can was found at the car, which police were able to start when they arrived, the Seattle Times reported. But Lafrate told reporters that this is not uncommon after a low-fuel car has been stationary for a time.

The boy, described by police as half-Indian and half-Caucasian, was wearing a dark green hooded sweatshirt and blue-and-gray striped pants.

-- Kim Murphy in Seattle

Advertisement