Police Question Intoxicated Mom—Then Realize She Doesn’t Know Where Her Child Is

What began as an urgent search for a missing toddler in Waukesha, Wisconsin, took a disturbing turn when police discovered that the 21-year-old mother who reported her son missing had apparently picked him up from daycare hours earlier, left him alone at home, and then become so intoxicated that she insisted she had no idea where he was.

The June 19, 2025, incident was shown in body-camera footage published by Code Blue Cam, whose narrator said officers initially believed they were racing against time to locate a missing 2-year-old after the mother called dispatch in a panic.

She told a dispatcher that she was sitting outside the daycare, nobody was there, and her son was gone.

“Please just tell me, where is my kid?” she pleaded.

But as officers began checking her story, witnesses at the daycare told them something completely different.

Mother Insists Someone Else Picked Him Up

When officers met the woman, she said she had dropped her son off earlier that day and returned expecting to pick him up, only to discover he was no longer at the daycare.

She suggested that her mother, grandmother, or brother might have taken him, but said none of them were answering her calls.

The child’s father had 50% custody, she said, although she insisted it was not his scheduled time and claimed she could communicate with him only through messages attached to Venmo payments.

Her distress appeared genuine at first.

She cried, repeatedly demanded to know where her child was, and became frustrated when officers calmly worked through possible locations.

The situation began changing once an officer contacted the daycare.

According to Code Blue Cam, daycare staff said the child had actually been released directly to his mother earlier in the afternoon.

When officers confronted her with that information, she immediately denied it.

“They’re lying,” she said.

The mother accused the daycare employee of being under the influence and demanded to know why police would believe she had picked up her own child when she was now reporting him missing.

Daycare Witnesses Say They Saw Her Leave With the Child

Police continued checking.

The daycare manager told officers she was confident the mother had arrived and signed the child out at approximately 4:14 p.m.

Two other witnesses—a teacher and another parent—also reportedly remembered seeing her with the toddler.

The manager described watching the mother take the child from his classroom, walk through the office, and leave.

That evidence made the woman’s repeated insistence that she had never picked him up increasingly difficult to reconcile.

Officers also learned that she had her own code for the daycare’s pickup system, although staff were initially unsure whether the system recorded which code had been entered.

The mother remained adamant.

“I never picked him up,” she said, insisting she would remember seeing her son’s face.

At that point, officers were no longer simply searching for a child who might have been picked up by the wrong relative. They were trying to determine whether the mother herself had lost track of what she had done several hours earlier.

That made the call far more serious, because a child not yet 2 years old could not safely be left somewhere without supervision while adults tried to reconstruct the mother’s movements.

Family Raises Questions About Alcohol

Police contacted the child’s father, who confirmed he did not have the boy.

When an officer privately asked whether it was possible the mother had picked up their son and then forgotten where she left him, the father immediately asked whether she was drunk.

He told officers she had experienced problems with alcohol in the past, although he had not been in close contact with her for about 10 months.

Police also contacted the woman’s mother, who contradicted another part of her story.

The 21-year-old had claimed her mother was supposed to retrieve the child that afternoon, but her mother told police she was actually scheduled to pick him up the following day.

Meanwhile, officers began noticing signs that the woman herself might be intoxicated.

She initially said she had last consumed alcohol two days earlier.

Later, after an officer told her he could smell alcohol, she admitted drinking two shots of Bacardi mixed with fruit punch at home earlier that day.

Her account kept shifting.

She also told officers she had spent much of the day crying because she was depressed and had not been taking prescribed medication, while family members described concerns about her emotional state.

Those issues may help explain why she was struggling, but they did not change the immediate problem: police still had a toddler to find.

Officers Enter Her Home and Find the Boy

An officer went to the mother’s apartment while others continued speaking with her.

Neighbors reported hearing loud banging earlier in the evening and described the woman leaving the area quickly in her Buick.

One neighbor said the vehicle sped through the parking lot, struck a speed bump hard, spun around, and nearly hit a tree.

Those details only increased concern about what officers might find inside the apartment.

Police initially could not enter without permission.

A family member eventually arrived after receiving a call from the mother, and officers contacted her directly.

She gave them permission to go inside.

Moments later, an officer found the toddler inside the residence.

“The child is in the residence,” he radioed.

The boy was safe and appeared unharmed.

When the officer called the mother and told her he had found her son, she broke down crying in relief.

But that discovery also confirmed the central concern.

According to Code Blue Cam’s account, the mother had apparently picked up the toddler from daycare, taken him home, left him there alone, and then later forgotten that any of it had happened.

That is a frightening chain of events for any parent, particularly with a child so young that he could not care for himself or explain where his mother had gone.

Breath Test Shows Extremely High Alcohol Level

With the child safe, officers turned their attention to determining what had happened to the mother.

They performed field sobriety testing and later administered a preliminary breath test.

According to the bodycam footage, the reading came back at .226.

An officer described that result as “very high.”

The mother was then arrested for operating while intoxicated.

Police also searched the residence and found both empty and full alcohol containers, which Code Blue Cam said reinforced officers’ belief that intoxication had played a major role in her confusion.

Child Protective Services became involved, and the boy was ultimately released to his father.

The case might have ended there with an OWI and child-neglect investigation.

Instead, the mother continued making matters worse.

During transport, she reportedly slipped one hand out of her handcuffs and attempted to free the other.

At the station, she repeatedly argued with officers, denied responsibility for leaving her son alone, and claimed someone else had been watching him.

When an officer explained that she was also being arrested for child neglect, she reacted angrily.

“He was on site the whole time,” she said.

But officers had found the toddler alone in the apartment.

Behavior at Station Leads to More Trouble

Police told the woman she could potentially be released to a sober responsible adult if she cooperated with booking.

Otherwise, they warned, continued resistance could result in her being transported to the county jail.

She initially appeared willing to comply.

Then she got up without permission and walked toward a restroom, saying she wanted water.

Officers stopped her, and another struggle followed.

During that confrontation, police said she kicked an officer, adding another alleged offense to an already serious case.

The woman continued screaming and accusing officers of mistreating her as they restrained her.

Code Blue Cam said she was ultimately charged with felony neglecting a child, battery or threats toward an officer, and misdemeanor resisting or obstructing an officer.

The criminal case later produced a clearer outcome than many bodycam stories.

According to the channel, she was eventually found guilty of neglecting a child and resisting or obstructing an officer.

She received 60 days in jail and three years of probation.

Code Blue Cam also reported that if she violates the conditions imposed by the court, she could be required to serve 14 months in state prison followed by another 14 months of extended supervision.

A Missing-Child Call With an Unexpected Ending

The strangest part of the case is that police began by treating the mother as someone desperately searching for a missing child.

Her fear sent officers checking relatives, calling the father, visiting the daycare, speaking with neighbors, and preparing for the possibility that someone had taken the toddler.

Instead, the evidence gradually led back to her own apartment.

The daycare remembered her picking him up.

Her relatives did not have him.

The father did not have him.

And eventually an officer opened the door to her home and found the boy waiting inside.

Intoxication at the level reported by police can turn poor judgment into a dangerous situation very quickly, and in this case the person placed most at risk was a toddler who had no ability to protect himself.

The child was fortunately found safe, but the outcome could have been far worse.

For officers, the call began with one frightening question—where is the missing child?

By the end, they had an answer that nobody initially expected: he had been home the entire time, while his intoxicated mother searched for a son she apparently did not remember bringing there.