Video showed the woman arriving at the home in a white passenger car. The suspect could be seen running toward the front door of the home while lifting the child in the air by one arm. She then rang the doorbell and ran back to her vehicle, leaving the child and two bags she was carrying. The entire incident lasted 23 seconds.
"It was a very big misunderstanding," the mother said, explaining that she asked a friend to drop off the child, but the woman went to the wrong house.
Authorities say the woman, who has custody of the boy, asked her friend to take him to his biological father's house because she was in the hospital.
"Had she waited just seven more seconds, the homeowner would've opened the door," said Lieutenant Scott Spencer, with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. "And maybe it would've started a discussion or dialogue to direct her to the correct house to drop the child off."
After the homeowner found the child on her porch and called police, reporter Courtney Fischer at sister station KTRK in Houston found the father after showing him the video. Willie Simmons lives next door to the house in question, and he identified the boy as 2-year-old Royal Prince Simmons.
"What if my neighbor wasn't there?" Willie Simmons said. "If my neighbor wasn't there, my son would have been roaming up and down the street."
Police say they also knocked on Willie Simmons' door, but he was not home at the time.
Both parents were called to the CPS office in Conroe for an emergency meeting with caseworkers.
"I never met that lady, I never seen that lady in my life," Willie Simmons said. "That was very irresponsible, and I feel the lady who dropped my son off needs to be held accountable."
Authorities say the woman is being charged with felony child abandonment.
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