Small Fire Uncovers Troubling Child Abandonment Investigation

A young child was allegedly left behind on a Belize City street, and tonight police are trying to determine why the person who left the child there never came back. According to investigators, a woman reportedly placed the child in the care of a resident on Bagdad Street while she waited for a taxi. But police say she disappeared and never returned for the child. The case took an unusual turn when a small fire at a nearby home led to the discovery of a birth paper bearing the child’s name. That document helped authorities connect the dots and bring the matter to light. ASP Stacy Smith shares more on what police know so far.

 

ASP Stacy Smith, Staff Officer

“As it relates to the incident with the child on Bagdad Street in Belize City, what I’ve been able to ascertain so far is that sometime last night police were called to a residence on Bagdad Street because there was a fire on a stair, and the lady stated that when she extinguished the fire, she noticed a birth paper was near where the fire occurred. It was only because of this, another female who lived not too far away realized that the name on the birth paper is that of a female who had visited her earlier and left her child there with her. That particular woman reported that a female known to her solely by first name, and it’s not someone that she was intimately acquainted with, visited her and began a conversation and asked her to call a taxi for her. And during that time that they were waiting for the taxi, the child fell asleep, so the child was placed to sleep within the residence. The female, which is the mother of the child, left, and she did not return any at all, and it was only when that incident happened that she realized that something may have gone awry. Investigators have since been able to locate the mother. The child was placed with the human services, and I’ve been advised that a consultation and welfare check should happen sometime during the course of today to see what exactly went wrong that caused the mother to take that course of action that she took.”

 

Police have not disclosed the cause of the fire but confirmed that no one was injured by the flames. 

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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