ELYRIA, Ohio — A 37-year-old mother in Elyria was arrested early Thursday morning after her 4-year-old child was found wandering the streets cold and alone after the woman left to go and buy drugs, police said.
According to Elyria police, the mother has been charged with endangering children.
Just after 2 a.m., Elyria officers responded to the 300 block of High Street for reports of a small child found by two good Samaritans. Authorities said the good Samaritans found the girl outside in the cold, barefoot and only wearing pajamas and screaming for her mother. The police report states that the temperature at the time was around 20 degrees.
Officers were able to track down the child's mother after one of the good Samaritans saw the mother get dropped off by a vehicle, go inside the house and then run outside screaming when she couldn't find her child, authorities said.
The woman initially denied ever leaving the child at home, but after officers told her a nearby security camera captured the incident on tape, she admitted to police that she had left to go to an ATM and buy marijuana.
The police report states that the woman also told police that the child was left with a roommate, but the roommate later told officers he had been asleep in a locked room and wasn't responsible for watching the woman's child.
The woman was arrested and taken to the Lorain County Jail.
The child's father was notified about the incident and drove in from Cleveland to pick the girl up.
