Two parents in Oklahoma City are being charged with felony child abuse because they allegedly left their two toddlers home alone while saying that a babysitter didn’t show up when they said she would.
The driver was worried when they saw their three-year-old daughter wandering around in the street near Northwest 16th and Villa Avenue on November 3. They called the police after a nearby resident named the child’s parents as Rudy Lopez and Jessica Lopez-Paz, who were not home at the time.
Court records received by KFOR show that when police arrived, the child’s two-year-old brother was alone in the house. Police say they had to wait for the parents to come home for more than an hour.
A neighbor named Amber Carrigan told KFOR, “That is completely unacceptable.” “You shouldn’t leave a diapered child alone at home…” It is really disappointing. “That’s scary.”
According to police, Lopez and Lopez-Paz told them that they had left the door locked and a cell phone for the kids because the babysitter didn’t show up. That being said, cops think this was made up.
Carrigan and other neighbors were worried about how vulnerable the kids were and pointed out the risks they might have been in. Carrigan said, “They might have been gone for a long time.” “I mean, they might have been taken…””So many things could have happened.”
“Leaving them alone for five minutes is not even okay,” said Carrigan, who is a mother herself. Reporters from News 4 tried to talk to Lopez-Paz, who was freed on bond, but she wouldn’t say anything.