CHILLICOTHE, Ohio— A three-year-old child was found yesterday wandering around the public library on Paint Street in Chillicothe.
Officers with the police department responded to the library yesterday around 3:30 p.m. after a caller stated that they had found a small child wandering around the parking lot wearing only a one-piece sleeper outfit.
Reports say the child was found in the parking lot by an employee at the library. The employee told police that she did not see any person with the child.
Police said they had not received any reports of anyone missing a child in the city.
Officers contacted Ross County Children’s Services to begin an investigation.
According to police reports, it was over an hour before anyone came looking for the child, and it was not one of the parents.
A friend of the child’s father arrived at the library and stated he was looking for the child. The man told police that the child lived in the Lincoln Park Apartments. He went on to tell police that he was at the residence when he and the father discovered that the child was missing.
In a statement provided to police by the family friend, the child likely followed the mother out the door when she left to run some errands.
The man then left the library and went to get the father.
Children’s Services and officers with the Chillicothe Police Department responded to the residence in Lincoln Park. The father told police that one of the older children had left the apartment without permission and was walking with the mother to the WIC Office on East Second Street. The father left the apartment to look for the older child. He went on to tell police that when he returned home, he found the younger three-year-old missing.
At the time, the man thought the child was in an upstairs bedroom.
Officers, along with CPS workers, checked the residence and discovered the conditions in the apartment were “deplorable”.
The children, police say, were placed in the temporary care of neighbors, and a summons for child endangering was issued.
