Mom Jailed After Leaving 5-Year-Old at Park for More than 6 Hours

A West Des Moines mother who didn’t call police for nearly six hours Sunday after she discovered her 5-year-old missing from the park Sunday has been arrested.

Danille Marie Clinton, 34, of West Des Moines, has been charged with neglect or abandonment of a dependent person, the Des Moines Register reported.

Des Moines police said the shirtless, shoeless boy wandered up to a birthday party at Union Park about 2 p.m. and the family played with and fed the child for several hours. He reportedly told the strangers his name, that his mother had dropped him off while she drove a car back to a friend who needed it to go to work, and that he hadn’t eaten yet that day.

At 5 p.m., the adults at the birthday party began walking around Union Park looking for the boy’s mother and the car, but when they were unsuccessful, they called police. Authorities talked with the boy, but couldn’t get enough information to find his family.

So they sat in police cars at the park for about an hour and a half waiting for someone to return to pick up the child. When no one showed, authorities called the Iowa Department of Human Services and the child was taken to a shelter.

Around 7:30 p.m., Clinton’s husband called police and said the boy’s grandmother had told him the child was missing.

Clinton reportedly called police around 8 p.m. and said she had been looking for her son for hours and got lost trying to find him because she didn’t know the park well.

According to the newspaper, police said Clinton “sounded intoxicated and had trouble speaking.”

Clinton remained in the Polk County Jail on $10,000 bond Wednesday morning.