ORLANDO, Fla. – A young boy was found dead Monday night in a van outside an Orlando day care, police said.
Orlando police received a call around 8:30 p.m. in connection with a possible child neglect case at Little Miracles Academy at 900 Plymouth Ave., Sgt. Eduardo Bernal said.
Officers found the boy inside the van, and he was pronounced dead a short time later, police said. The boy's age has not been confirmed, but he was described by Bernal as "a very young child."
Earlier in the night, KSAT 12's sister station WKMG in Orlando learned that police were investigating a situation in which a child was reportedly left in a day care van for hours. It's not known exactly how long the boy had been in the van.
The boy’s family told WKMG that they dropped him off earlier in the day, and that he’s usually home by 6 p.m. When he still hadn’t returned by about 8 p.m., the family called police.
Barbara Livingston, the boy’s aunt, said she asked one of the day care workers where he was, and she said he was gone.
“(We) said, ‘Gone where?’ And she pointed at the van,” Livingston told News 6. "I'm numb. I don't know how to feel."
"It's wrong. How (are) you going to leave a child in a van? You work in a day care," Alice Williams said. "She done left that baby like that. That's wrong. No one called nobody. The family had to call the police."
According to a Florida Department of Children and Families inspection report last month, Little Miracles was cited for not keeping track of children being transported.
"The facility's log for children transported did not include the following required elements: [destination time, arrival time, destination location and departure location. ]. (Section 6.2, number 3) [SR]," the DCF report said.
A sign on the day care's door says the facility is closed until further notice, but parents arrived Tuesday morning to drop off their children, saying they were not notified of the boy's death.
No one has been taken into custody. An investigation is continuing.
No further details were immediately available.