Little Girl Strays From Imperial Beach Daycare Center

Shortly before sunset on Tuesday, November 16, a couple responding to a Craigslist ad about a “free trailer” found a small child wandering at Florida Street and Grove Avenue in Imperial Beach. They immediately notified sheriff’s deputies who, upon arriving, drove around several blocks announcing over P.A. systems that they had found an approximately two-year-old girl.

As the couple minded the little girl, she called out to an 11-year-old boy riding by on his bicycle. “Is this your sister?” a deputy asked him. The boy seemed surprised. “No,” he said, “that’s my little cousin. My auntie took her to daycare while she and my uncle went to the bus station."

As a man and woman in their early 20s walked up, the boy on the bicycle said, “That’s the guy from the daycare and his girlfriend.”

According to the boy, the daycare center was a block away. “My auntie is going to be so mad,” he said. “Somebody could have kidnapped her.” Deputies stayed at the scene until the girl’s mother arrived; they turned the child over to her.