NEWARK, DELAWARE (12/22/2014) A day care provider was charged after two young children left in her SUV while she went shopping were towed away when the vehicle was repossessed, state police said today.
The incident happened about 12:30 p.m. Friday at the Pencader Plaza Shopping Center at South Chapel Street and Route 4 just outside Newark.
Someone reported the children had been left unattended in a vehicle. As troopers were responding, they learned the SUV had been towed to All Hooked Up Towing, 80 Aleph Drive.
A 32-year-old employee there, meanwhile, heard children’s voices coming from the vehicle as he began to unhook it. The 2007 Dodge Aspen had dark tinted windows and boxes blocking the view to the rear, and he found a 5-year-old girl and a 1-year-old girl in the third seat. The employee called 911.
Tonya F. Robinson, 40, of Bear, had since returned to discover her vehicle missing from the parking lot and also called 911.
Police charged her with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and released her on $4,000 unsecured bail.
A second day care provider retrieved the children and reunited them with their parents.