The mother of a three-year-old child was arrested after he crossed six lanes of traffic on State Road 44 to get to the IHOP Restaurant in Wildwood.
Sumter County sheriff’s deputies were called at 12:45 a.m. to the restaurant where they met a woman who had grabbed a hold of the boy after he crossed the roadways. The boy was wearing a yellow T-shirt and nothing else. The boy, who could provide his first name but not his last name, indicated he had come from a hotel on the other side of State Road 44.
The deputies took the little boy back to the hotel, where they found a partially open door. Inside the room, deputies found the little boy’s 10-year-old brother who was sleeping. He was able to call their mother’s cell phone from the hotel room’s landline.
Carlissa Mooney, 29, arrived at the hotel and told deputies she had only left the child alone for “a few minutes” to go purchase cigarettes. She said she left the boys alone, sleeping in bed.
She was arrested on a charge of child neglect and booked at the Sumter County Detention Center. Bond was set at $2,000.
