Toddlers' mom reported them missing 5 hours after they were found

Alexis Stevens

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Gwinnett County mother reported her two youngest children missing five hours after police found them wandering alongside Lawrenceville Highway, police said.

 

Gwinnett Police This unidentified girl is one of two found wandering near Lawrenceville Highway.

 

 

Gwinnett Police, Gwinnett Police Police say the girls appear to be twins.

 

Shortly before 1 p.m. Friday, a Gwinnett County mother called police to report her two youngest children missing. But police already knew where the twin girls were: they had been picked up by an officer when they were found wandering alongside Lawrenceville Highway shortly after 8 a.m.

The toddlers remained in protective custody Friday afternoon as police tried to determine how the girls ended up alone near the busy roadway, nearly a mile from their home, police said.

The twins' mother, whose name has not been released, told police the girls were asleep at 6 a.m., Cpl. Brian Kelly said. The woman said her husband left for work at 6 a.m. and locked the front door behind him, Kelly said. At some point, the girls let themselves out and wandered away from the home, the mother told police. Three older children also live in the home, Kelly said.

The incident remains under investigation, police said.

Officers responded to a call around 8 a.m. from a driver on the way to work who said the children may get on the busy thoroughfare, Kelly said. When police arrived, the toddlers were not in the road, but standing on the corner of the sidewalk near the intersection with Hamilton Road. Neither child had been harmed.

"Officers checked the area for a guardian, to see if someone had possibly fallen in the area or had a heart attack or something, but no supervising adults were found," Kelly told the AJC.

The toddlers, between the ages of 2 and 4, were taken into protective custody, where they were fed and hydrated, Kelly said. By 5 p.m., the girls had not been returned to their parents, he said.

Earlier Friday, Kelly said police sent out a phone recording to all residences within a one-mile radius of where the toddlers were found.

At 12:56 p.m., the girls' mother called police to report the two missing, Kelly said. Officers were then dispatched to the home, in the 200 block of Phoenix Drive, to interview the woman, but the girls were not immediately returned to their parents.

- Staff writer Chelsea Cook contributed to this report