Facebook Amber Alert notifies babysitter the boy he is looking after is a missing person
John Truong said he was shocked to be told on Facebook that police were looking for the child who 'looked just like this child in my bed'
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Your support makes all the difference.A babysitter has rescued a lost two-year-old boy after he received a missing person report via Facebook matching the description of the child in his care.
John Truong, from Des Moines in Washington, had been asked to look after the boy by his sister – the girlfriend of the child’s father – and thought nothing of looking after him for one evening on Tuesday.
Speaking to local news station Komo TV, he said he only realised something was wrong on Wednesday morning when he received a Facebook “Amber Alert”, part of a collaborative system between the social network and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
He said: "I'm eating my breakfast, I'm checking my Facebook, all of a sudden I see this Amber Alert for this child and it looks like this child in my bed, and I'm like, 'Oh, my God! What's going on?'"
According to Washington state police, the mother of the child claims she was visited on Tuesday afternoon by his paternal grandmother and Truong’s sister, Alyssa Chang.
Des Moines police Sergeant Mike Graddon told ABC News the pair were alleged to have then subdued the child’s mother with a Taser, tied her up and driven her to another house in the town of Fife 20 miles away.
Police say they allegedly then retied the mother up in the garage and took the child into the house, before contacting Mr Truong.
The child’s mother was able to escape her ties and went to a neighbour’s home, where she asked to call the police, ABC News reported. But according to investigators, she first called a relative and police were not informed until 9pm – at which point the amber alert was sent out.
Sgt Graddon said: “There’s a lot of family dynamics involved. As far as why, we can only speculate.”
Mr Truong told Komo TV in Seattle: “He was a great kid. He didn't cry much or anything. He enjoyed my dog's company and my children's company. Everything seemed great and then all of a sudden I'm eating breakfast and it turns out to be this.”
He said he was still shocked to learn that his sister had been arrested on charges of kidnapping, assault and unlawful imprisonment, saying it was “just crazy”. The child’s grandmother later turned herself in to police and was questioned for several hours, Komo TV said. The boy has been returned to his mother.
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