Local Headlines: Sad but true

[TunaHead]

EUREKA -- A woman was arrested after calling to report her 18-month-old daughter missing when the child was actually abandoned in a car blocks away, police said Monday.

According to Eureka police, Kimberly Ann Whitlock, 26, was allegedly drunk and left the little girl in a running car a few blocks away from her home on Sunday night. When she returned, she called the police to report that she had last seen her daughter 25 minutes before in the driveway on the 2100 block of Pine Street.

Whitlock appeared to be confused, disoriented, and staggering, police said. A witness stated he believed Whitlock had driven her van away with the child but returned without the car or her daughter.

Almost 15 minutes later, police found the girl in a van a few blocks away. The heater was on in the vehicle, and the temperature was described as being “very warm.” Child Welfare Services was called to take custody of the child.

”It could have ended up much worse if the passerby didn't see the van,” police spokeswoman Suzie Owsley said.

Whitlock was arrested on charges of child endangerment, child abandonment, driving under the influence and immoral practices in the presence of a child.

The immoral practice, Owsley said, was the entire sequence of allegedly driving drunk and abandoning the child in a running vehicle.

The case is similar in some ways to other recent reports from around the state, where parents have left their children alone in cars -- sometimes with tragic results.
In late July, for example, Danny Takemoto, 46, of Benicia was being held in the Contra Costa County Jail when his 11-month-old son died after being left unattended in a hot car for several hours.

The father of three had dropped off his two other children at school, then apparently forgot the baby was in the car. He went to work, and didn't realize his error until late in the afternoon, when his wife called to ask why the child was not at daycare.

[Stillrunning]

Its sad but maybe they can find the child a home with two loving parents and as far as they can from her mother.