SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio mom is accused of tying her then 5-year-old daughter to an ice machine and abandoning her before leaving the state in November 2016.
Authorities in Raleigh issued a fugitive warrant for the arrest of Michele Roode Boyd, 43, who disappeared after her daughter was found tied to an ice machine near a Walgreens on Rigsby Avenue.
READ THE ORIGINAL REPORT: SAPD: 5-year-old girl found abandoned, tied up
According to an affidavit, a witness found the girl with her arms taped around her back and tape on her mouth at a "Twice the Ice" machine at 4509 Rigsby Ave. around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 25, 2016. The witness took the child to a Walgreens at 3065 Rigsby Ave. where an employee called police.
The 5-year-old girl told police her mother, Boyd, was the one who tied her up and left her at the ice station, the affidavit said.
Court documents state the Walgreens employee told police she remembered Boyd had come in with her daughter earlier in the evening and that employees caught Boyd trying to steal items.
Police talked to the child's stepsister who told investigators Boyd had done something similar earlier in the day.
The girl's stepsister told police Boyd tied the 5-year-old up while shopping at the RIM and put a towel in the girl's mouth and placed duct tape over her mouth. The step sister said the child was untied and released to her father.
Later on the same day is when the second incident occurred, according to an affidavit.
Authorities were unable to locate Boyd after the incident. At one point, a cash reward was offered for information in her disappearance and a Facebook group titled "Help Find Michele Roode Boyd" was created.
"It was just a big relief to see her -- you know -- that she’s here, she’s alive, she’s a real person," Boyd's mother, Susan Roode, told the ABC News station in Raleigh.
Roode said her daughter, who was a registered nurse, suffered from severe mental illness but had never been diagnosed. Roode added that Boyd had been acting paranoid in the days before her disappearance and never intended to hurt the 5-year-old girl.
"She was in fear for her daughter’s safety," Roode said. "She really felt that someone was after her and was going to harm her family and that she had to get away from them for their sake."
A warrant was issued for Boyd's arrest out of San Antonio on Dec. 7, 2016 and Boyd was arrested at a Raleigh hospital where she was a patient on Monday.
She is expected to return to Texas in the next two weeks, according to ABC 11 in Raleigh.