Father Arrested After Toddler Abaonded in Gas Station Bathroom
Police working to connect toddler abandoned in Delaware, woman burned in N.Y.
Feb. 25, 2010— -- The father of a toddler found abandoned in a Delaware gas station bathroom was charged in her kidnapping after a tip led police to connect the two.
The girl, who remains in foster care, could not be identified for four days as police looked for anyone who might know her.
Middlesex County prosecutors now say that her father, 25-year-old Dwayne Jackson, was behind the girl's abandonment. In addition to kidnapping, he was also charged with first-degree reckless endangerment. He is being held on $750,000 bond.
"I've been here 20 years as a police officer and never have we had an abandonment case like this where a child was just left," Newark (Del.) Police Lt. Brian Henry said.
Police in New York say the discovery of a woman's burned body found in a park in the village of Monsey, just north of the New Jersey state line, is connected to the case, according to The Associated Press. But officials would not say whether the woman was believed to be the girl's mother.
The little girl, whose name has not been released, was found Sunday afternoon when a passerby heard her crying. Waiting to use the bathroom, police say a man waited for several minutes, thinking an adult was with the child, and then opened the door to find the girl alone, crying for her mother.
"She wasn't able to say anything. She says typical 2-year-old words -- milk, cookie, mommy," Henry said. " But not her own name or anything to tell us who she was."
Placed in foster care, her temporary family tried to reassure but not traumatize her any further.
"They weren't really calling her anything just not to confuse her," Henry said.
Division of Family Services spokesman Joseph Smack told the AP that his office had received calls from all over the country looking to adopt the little girl.
Henry said there were no outward signs of abuse when the little girl was examined at the hospital after she was found.
"She was very well-dressed. She was clean," he said, describing her outfit as a tan, puffy winter coat, nice jeans, a purple shirt and "girly sneakers ... she had obviously been very well cared for up until that point."