A six-year-old homeless girl was found wandering the streets in a Florida neighborhood with only her dog by her side.
Heartbreaking footage shows the moment the girl was discovered my police after a Good Samaritan reported she had been walking around her front yard with a black dog tied to her dress in Daytona on Friday.
The woman who called police said the girl, who was wearing dirty clothes, told her she was hot, thirsty and hungry, as reported by Fox 35.
The good Samaritan said she provided the girl with food and water, as well as toys and clean underwear, as she was not wearing any.
The girl reportedly told police her mom and her mom’s boyfriend had dropped her off at a park in the area hours before.
‘Mommy and daddy needed to go charge their cell phones,’ the girl told responding deputies.
A six-year-old girl was found wandering around a Deltona neighborhood with her dog
The girl reportedly told police her parents had left her alone in a nearby park
Aquania Estes, 27, and Pitrez Floyd, 29, were arrested on Friday after the girl was found
She was carrying a small backpack containing a blanker, marker and a toilet bowl cleaner used as a brush, according to police records.
The girl reportedly said she lived in a home that ‘leaks when it rains and said she is often allowed to leave and walk to stores on her own.’
Police were able to track down the girl’s mom and her boyfriend – Aquania Estes, 27, and Pitrez Floyd, 29 – through a Medicaid card the girl was carrying.
Bodycam footage also shows the moment police confronted the couple, who have been arrested.
‘You leave your kid on the side of the f***ing road?’ a deputy asked the couple.
Estes is heard telling police the family is homeless and ‘live in the forest.’ She eventually showed police a tent in the woods she said the family lived at.
Police found the girl sitting in the good Samaritan’s front yard furniture in Daytona
The girl’s mother and her boyfriend were located thanks to a Medicaid card the girl was carrying. They are seen being confronted by police
The couple reportedly told police they lived in the above tent ‘in the forest’
‘She got out of where she was at,’ the mother added. ‘I was trying to go get water and food. We have been going through a rough time.’
Estes and Floyd are facing charges of desertion of a child and abandonment of an animal and being held on a $51,000 bond.
The girl, who did not attend school, is now in the care of her grandparents and her dog was been turned over to Deltona Animal Control.
