Marissa Bagg’s report for NBC 6 South Florida opens with a detail that’s hard to shake, because it’s the kind of detail every parent understands instinctively: two small children were left sitting in the back seat of an Uber while their mother walked away, and the person who finally called police wasn’t a relative or a neighbor – it was the rideshare driver, a stranger who suddenly realized he was the only adult in charge.
Police in Sunrise say the children are safe now, but the case has triggered a wave of blunt questions that don’t have easy answers, including how a routine ride ended with officers searching for a missing mother and a father nauseous with fear over what could have happened.
According to Bagg, the mother, 32-year-old Emily Sabogal, has now been arrested and charged, accused of abandoning her children inside the vehicle for an extended period of time while she disappeared.
The charges listed in the case are serious, because they’re built around the idea that leaving kids alone isn’t just “bad judgment,” it’s a moment where harm can arrive in seconds and the consequences can stretch for years.
A Ride Cancelled, A Promise Made, And A Stranger Left Holding The Bag
Bagg reported that Sabogal ordered an Uber with her two children, a 3-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter, and that the pickup happened along Northwest 50th Street near 108th Avenue in Sunrise.
Police say the driver later told them Sabogal appeared to have an alcoholic drink in her hand when she got into the car, which immediately changes the tone of the story because it suggests this wasn’t a calm, normal start to a ride.
The driver’s account, as Bagg described it, includes a moment that feels chaotic and impulsive: investigators say Sabogal reached forward, grabbed the driver’s phone, and cancelled the ride from inside the vehicle.
Then, according to police, she handed the driver $10 cash, asked him to stop, stepped out, and told him she would be back in “three minutes.”
That promise – three minutes – sits at the center of the entire case, because it’s the kind of phrase people use when they’re trying to minimize what they’re doing, even if they’re not fully thinking it through.
It’s also the kind of promise that can become a trap for the person left behind, because the driver is now stuck weighing two bad options: drive away with someone else’s kids, or sit and wait with someone else’s kids.
Bagg’s reporting suggests the driver chose to wait, at least at first, while the children remained in the back seat and appeared, in the early phase, to be okay.
Police say an hour passed, and the children were still in “good spirits,” which is both relieving and deeply unsettling, because kids can look fine right up until they suddenly aren’t.
“Sick To My Stomach”: A Father Hears What Happened
Bagg said NBC 6 spoke by phone with the children’s father, who asked that his name not be used, and the emotion in his reaction sounded raw and immediate.
“I honestly was sick to my stomach,” he told the station, explaining that his mind went straight to the question no parent wants to ask out loud: were his children harmed while their mother was gone?
His comments, as Bagg presented them, weren’t the language of a social media argument or a custody fight – they sounded like a man trying to keep his breathing steady while imagining every possible outcome of a situation he didn’t cause and couldn’t control.
He also spoke about how “anything could have happened,” and the statement hits because it’s not dramatic, it’s accurate.
A parked car can become dangerous in ways adults forget until a headline forces the memory back – heat, cold, strangers, traffic, panic, fear – plus the psychological damage of being too young to understand why the adult who brought you there never came back.
The father told NBC 6 that his children later talked about seeing police sirens and lights, and that he had to calm them down and distract them with toys, which is one of those small details that reveals a bigger truth: even when children are physically unharmed, they still carry the stress home.
The Moment The Driver Stops Waiting And Calls Police
Bagg reported that after the first hour passed, the driver called Sabogal, and she allegedly told him she would be back in 12 minutes.
Then, according to police, she hung up, and the minutes stretched again, which is when the driver called police.
In the version of events laid out by investigators, the decision to involve law enforcement wasn’t made instantly, and that matters because it shows the driver wasn’t trying to escalate a conflict – he was trying to solve a problem that kept getting worse.
There’s also something quietly important about the fact that police say the Uber driver was the one who sounded the alarm, because he did what many bystanders hesitate to do.
A lot of people freeze in situations that feel “not their business,” and that hesitation is exactly where bad outcomes breed.
The father, according to Bagg, said he feels grateful to the driver for calling police, and he even talked about wanting to reach out and thank him.
That kind of gratitude is telling, because it suggests the father sees the driver as the person who refused to let the situation drift into the unthinkable.
Police Search For Mom And Find Her Miles Away
Bagg said Sunrise police launched a search, and officers eventually found Sabogal in a parking lot about two miles away from where the children had been left.
In the report, Bagg described the moment police located her as confusing and alarming – she was found at a distance from the original scene and, police say, couldn’t explain how she got there.
Investigators later placed her outside a McDonald’s in the area of Commercial Boulevard, roughly 2.2 miles from where the children had been waiting, a detail that reinforces that this wasn’t a quick run inside a store.
Bagg reported that when officers found Sabogal, she could not tell them how she got to that location, which is the kind of statement that makes a case instantly more complicated, because it opens the door to questions about intoxication, memory, and mental state.
Police also reported that she smelled of alcohol and appeared impaired, with slurred speech and statements that didn’t make sense, which becomes central to why this isn’t being treated as a simple misunderstanding.
The story, as Bagg laid it out, doesn’t read like a parent caught in a minor emergency.
It reads like a parent who vanished, resurfaced later, and left other adults to manage the fallout.
A Second Location, A Familiar Bar, And A Night That Raises More Questions
One of the more troubling threads in Bagg’s report involves what police say happened earlier that evening, before the Uber incident even began.
Investigators say Sabogal had been at a restaurant – identified as Bob G’s Wings and Things – where staff described her as a regular, and where police believe she had been drinking at the bar.
Bagg reported that police were told the children were running around the restaurant unsupervised while their mother drank, which, if accurate, paints a picture of a pattern rather than a one-off lapse.
That doesn’t mean every detail is proven beyond doubt yet, but the allegation matters because it gives prosecutors a narrative: this wasn’t a single bad moment that spiraled, it was a longer stretch of risky choices.
The father’s comments about “God sparing” his kids, as aired in Bagg’s report, also take on more meaning in that context.
He wasn’t just reacting to the Uber portion – he was reacting to the realization that the evening may have had multiple moments where his kids were left vulnerable.
Charges, Bond, And What Happens Next
Bagg reported that Sabogal is charged with child neglect and desertion of a child, and police emphasized that the children were unharmed physically when they were located.
Her bond was set at $1,500 for each charge, and she bonded out of jail, which is a detail that can frustrate the public even in cases where release is normal procedure, because it can feel like the system is moving faster to restore an adult’s freedom than to answer the community’s questions.
Bagg also noted that police said Sabogal has no criminal history, which complicates the story in a different way.
A clean record can mean this was an out-of-character crisis, or it can mean prior problems simply never became official; either way, it doesn’t erase what happened, it just changes how people interpret it.
NBC 6 also went to Sabogal’s home in Tamarac, according to Bagg, and her mother was there but did not want to comment, offering only a brief response rather than an explanation.
That silence isn’t proof of anything by itself, but it underscores that the family may be bracing for a long legal and personal fallout from a night that is now public.
The children, Bagg reported, are now in their father’s care.
The “Three Minutes” Line Is How These Cases Begin, But It’s Not How They End
There’s a reason “I’ll be right back” shows up in stories like this, and it’s because it’s a phrase adults use when they’re trying to convince themselves the risk is small enough to manage.
But Bagg’s report shows how quickly “three minutes” turns into “another hour,” and then turns into police lights and an arrest report, because time doesn’t stay polite when kids are involved.
It’s also hard to ignore the driver’s position here, because rideshare companies sell convenience, not custody, yet modern life keeps creating situations where strangers end up responsible for children they never agreed to supervise.
If police are right that the driver waited, called, waited again, and then called authorities, he made the safest choice available in a situation that never should have been placed in his lap in the first place.
And while the charges focus on what Sabogal allegedly did, this case also illustrates something larger that parents sometimes hate admitting: the margin for error is thin, and a single night of impaired thinking can create a lifetime of consequences for children who had no vote in the matter.
For the father, the nightmare didn’t come from a headline – it came from a phone call and the image of his kids sitting in the back seat of a car, watching sirens flash, wondering why the adult who promised to return never did.
That’s the part that lingers, even after everyone is physically safe, because it’s the kind of fear children remember in fragments, and the kind of fear parents remember in full.
Mark grew up in the heart of Texas, where tornadoes and extreme weather were a part of life. His early experiences sparked a fascination with emergency preparedness and homesteading. A father of three, Mark is dedicated to teaching families how to be self-sufficient, with a focus on food storage, DIY projects, and energy independence. His writing empowers everyday people to take small steps toward greater self-reliance without feeling overwhelmed.
