California Toddler Found in Kentucky: Female Police Officers Felt 'Something Was Wrong'
A toddler that went missing in Los Angeles, California two months ago was found in Kentucky today, according to media reports.
The 17-year-old girl has been identified as Alouette Day-Moreno-Baltierra. She was found by two female police officers at the University of Kentucky who felt something "wasn't right with the situation."
The police officers Jennifer Ockerman and Emily Scott responded to a call about a suspicious woman pushing a stroller on the campus on Thursday, according to ABC News. Then they saw the girl in the stroller wearing no socks, shoes or coat despite the cold weather.
After doing an investigation, they found that the toddler had been reported missing in California on October 15.
"This is an example of where the responding officers followed a gut feeling that something just wasn't right with the situation," University of Kentucky Police Chief Joe Monroe said in a statement according to ABC News. "We have been working with the Child Protective Services, LAPD and the FBI to make sure that we get Alouette returned safely to her legal custodian."
According to media reports, the woman caring for Alouette was her grandmother, Maria Baltierra-Dejesus.
Alouette's mother Dominique Baltierra reported that her daughter was missing but a day later she told police she wanted to cancel the missing children's report, LAPD officer Norma Eisenman told ABC News.
But the warrant for the grandmother and child were placed at that moment.
Baltierra has been arrested and the Alouette is been taken care of by Child Protective Services in Kentucky.
This is not the first time that female officers spot missing children after noticing something is "not right." Two female police officers Alison Jacobs and Lisa Campbell helped rescue Jaycee Lee Dugard from her captor Phillip Garrido at the University of Berkeley California in 2009.
Both women state that when they saw Phillip Garrido and his two daughters, Starlet and Angel Dugard, something "didn't seem right."
They said that while observing Garrido they found him to be erratic and the girls sullen and submissive. After runing a background check they found he was a sex offender on parole and later found Jaycee Lee Dugard who had been captive for 18 years.