BEXAR COUNTY, Texas – The neighbor who found a diaper-clad toddler alone wandering the streets of a west Bexar County subdivision said she is glad she was able to help him.
The neighbor, who identified herself only as “Gabriella,” said she was heading home shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday when she noticed the 2-year-old boy walking on a sidewalk along Hollow Trail, not far from Potranco Road.
She said he was wearing only a soiled diaper at the time.
“I sat there for a few minutes, looking down both of the front and back streets that I was on, and I didn’t see anyone (else),” Gabriella said. “It was almost 80 degrees, so I picked him up and put him in my son’s car seat that happened to already be in my car.”
Gabriella, who has five children of her own, said her instinct was to get the toddler to safety.
Gabriella shared video from her doorbell camera with TheTXLoop 12 News. The video showed the moments Gabriella carried the crying child into her home and when Bexar County sheriff’s deputies arrived to answer her 911 call.
The sheriff’s office then posted a photo of the toddler to its Facebook page, asking the public for help in finding his family.
A report said almost three hours after the child was found, they received a call from his mother, 24-year-old Destiny Celaya, reporting that her son was missing.
BCSO also said security camera video showed the child got out through the home’s garage.
As deputies later spoke with Celaya, they say they smelled the odor of marijuana and found the drug and drug paraphernalia inside her home.
Celaya was taken into custody on a charge of endangering a child.
By Wednesday morning, she had already been released from jail.
TheTXLoop 12 News found Celaya back at home, but she declined to speak on camera.
Celaya said the “whole thing had been blown out of proportion,” and she was looking forward to getting her children back home.
A spokesperson for Child Protective Services confirmed that the toddler and several other children had been removed from Celaya’s home and placed with other relatives.
Gabriella, meanwhile, is still reeling from finding the 2-year-old in a potentially dangerous situation.
“He was tiny. He depended on any adult that he had around him,” Gabriella said. “I mean, it just crushed me.”
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