Mom Who Wandered Away From Boy Found
Woman hospitalized 20 hours after leaving son during a Dallas ariport layover.
June 7, 2006— -- Authorities have located the woman who abandoned her 12-year-old son Friday morning during a layover at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport -- 20 hours after the boy reported his mother missing.
Jolanda Newberg was found by police responding to tips from the public at the airport car rental center this morning just after 7 a.m. CT.
One caller reported seeing Newberg walking along a road to the rental car center and another saw her inside the building, according to a release from the Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport Department of Public Safety.
Confronted by officers at a pay phone inside the rental center, Newberg agreed to be interviewed by police. She was later transported to a local hospital for additional evaluation.
Newberg's whereabouts for more than 20 hours remain a mystery, but police say she could face child abandonment charges.
Brandon Newberg, the woman's 12-year-old son, reported his mother missing to airport employees after he came out of the bathroom on June 6 and she was gone.
The pair had arrived at Dallas/Fort Worth around 8 a.m. on an American Airlines flight departing from the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. The pair were expected to board an American Airlines flight a few hours later to San Jose, Calif.
Airport police, with help from Transportation Security Administration employees and U.S. Air Marshals, searched the airport, the rental car center and surrounding hotels for any sign of the woman, who was wearing a sling on her arm.
Airport surveillance cameras captured Newberg, who also goes by the name Jolanda Munoz, as she walked through the airport terminal.
Authorities scaled back the search late Friday and revealed that the woman might be in a fragile mindset.
"Newberg is believed to have departed the airport grounds on her own and is believed to be in a questionable emotional state," Ken Capps, spokesman for the airport public safety, wrote in a Friday afternoon release.
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