The Texas woman who was seen on videotape leaving a two-year-old boy at a stranger’s doorstep says the incident was a big misunderstanding and that she ran from the home because it was cold outside.
“And the only reason I took off running was because it was chilly outside and I didn’t have [a] sweater on, as you can see in the video,” the woman, Keairra Woods, told local station KTRK.
Woods said she was just helping out her best friend’s aunt, who is the mother of the boy, when she was captured on grainy video rushing to the door with the boy, quickly ringing the bell and then bolting to the car without the boy.
She said she was under the impression she’d left the boy on the doorstep of his father’s house, where she was supposed to drop him off.
The boy’s father, Willie Simmons, lived next door.
In the interview, Woods blamed the boy’s mother, from whom she was receiving guidance on the telephone when the mishap occurred.
“I followed the GPS,” she told the station. “Mind you, I’m still on the phone with her, so by the time I get to the house, I say, ‘Well I just pulled up to the house.’ She said, ‘Okay, get out the car, get his bag and go to the door.’ “
Woods said she described multiple cars in the driveway and believes the boy’s mother should have realized then that she was at the wrong house because the boy’s father didn’t have that many vehicles.
“By the time I get to the door, I ring the doorbell. I still have him in my hand. I say ‘It’s like five cars out here, a red car, a black car, and a white car, and it’s like two rows of cars.’ [The boy’s mother] said ‘Okay.’”
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Woods said she rang the doorbell and saw a lady walking to the door — and said she took off running because she wanted to avoid contact with the boy’s stepmother, who had a dispute with the boy’s mother.
“That’s when I took off running,” she said.
A video of the incident went viral last week soon after the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department released it. At the time, many feared that a mother had abandoned her child.
Police have said the neighbor who found the boy at her doorstep after hearing the doorbell ring and a knock on the door brought the toddler inside and called 911.
When approached with the footage by reporters, the boy’s father revealed his disbelief.
“What if my neighbor wasn’t there?” Simmons told the station. “If my neighbor wasn’t there, my son would have been roaming up and down the street,” Simmons continued.
“That was very irresponsible. And I feel the lady who dropped my son off needs to be held accountable,” Simmons told the station.
Lt. Scott Spencer of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office told KPRC-TV that Simmons was under the impression that the boy would be dropped off to him Wednesday afternoon.
However, he got a text from the boy’s mother saying her friend would be bringing the child home because she had been admitted to the hospital.
ABC 13 also caught up with the child’s mother. When asked about the incident she said: “It was a very big misunderstanding.”
At this time, no charges have been filed against the woman, but according to Spencer she could face a charge of child abandonment, KPRC-TV reported.
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