A 2-year-old boy was abandoned outside a Goodwill in Southaven, Mississippi, with a plastic bag containing a change of clothes and a note, police said.
A person connected to the case was arrested in Memphis, Tennessee on Monday afternoon, according to the Southaven Police Department, which declined to provide additional details.
"At this time the investigation is still on going, no suspect information or charges are being released," the department said in a Facebook post.
The child was found outside the Goodwill drop-off just before 10 a.m. on Monday, police said. He was unable to give officers his name or the names of his parents or family members, the department said in its post.
But Antoinette Smith says she never had any intention of giving up her son, whose name is Sergio.
Speaking over the phone to Memphis activist Barbara Buress in a Facebook Live broadcast, she said she met up with a male acquaintance Sunday and went to Nashville. She said Sergio remained with the man’s sister in Memphis.
But she said that her acquaintance later revealed that it wasn’t his sister, but his girlfriend that the child was with.
“If I knew that I said I wouldn’t have left my baby like that. Ain’t no way I would have left my baby. That’s all I got with me,” said Smith.
Smith said the acquaintance then abandoned her at a Nashville store after she refused to work for him.
“He was like, ‘You better get out there and sell some a-s-s’ and all that type of stuff. I told him, ‘I’m not doing nothing,’” Smith said.
Surveillance video captured a man, woman and a red vehicle they were driving when the boy was abandoned. The man was seen dropping the child off before walking away, police said.
An employee at Goodwill told local station WREG that the man walked up to him and said that the child's mother could no longer care for him and then left, according to the outlet. A handwritten note on a paper towel read: "child abandoned... no phone number for mom."
WREG reports that Smith will be returning to the Memphis area after Buress arranged for her to be picked up in Nashville.
Sergio remains in CPS custody.
Source: NBC News
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