A woman identified as Morgan Taylor Jones, 32, was arrested in Miami after abandoning one of her children at a bus stop.
The mother, who had arrived with her two children in Florida on Wednesday of last week, faces two charges of child neglect, for abandoning the 12-year-old boy at a bus stop in Hialeah and keeping him with another two-year-old infant in poor hygienic conditions, reported Local 10.
According to an arrest report, on Thursday the boy argued with the woman at the bus stop to claim that he wanted to return to his grandmother in Missouri.
He checked his cell phone and saw that it would take him 20 days to walk to that state to be reunited with his grandmother, and he walked away from the stop in front of Wendy’s at 1730 W. 49th St., near the Westland Mall.
Authorities detained Morgan Taylor Jones, 32, early Thursday morning and said she allowed the boy to be left alone in an unknown neighborhood.
Police reported that Jones yelled the boy’s name as he walked away, but never followed him.
The boy called his grandmother around 9:00 p.m. to tell her what he was doing; but she asked him to look for her mother. However, when the minor arrived at the bus stop, Jones was no longer there.
The boy said he couldn’t call his mother because her phone was out of battery and his was about to die. However, they allowed him to carry it at the Wendy’s and he was able to give the location to his grandmother, who notified the Hialeah police to rescue him.
When speaking with police, the victim said he and his little brother had not showered in more than a week and that he did not know where he was going to sleep that night.
“Both victims had dirty clothes, their skin was covered in dirt and they gave off a bad body odor due to lack of hygiene,” the report states.
As of Friday, Jones was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on $2,000 bail.
