I'll share a little bit of my experience that feels relevant to this case.
It happened almost 6 years ago, and I'm just glad I was in the right place at the right time, and not someone else. I was driving home in the rain from a doctor's appointment at about 11 in the morning on a weekday, and when I got on the freeway, something immediately caught my attention. It was like my brain instantly processed several red flags -- first, that there was something moving in the grass, then:
A. It was a small child
B. He was soaking wet and shirtless
C. He was carrying a beer bottle
I immediately pulled over and rolled down my window. I did not stop to call 911, there wasn't time. He was walking down the side of the freeway, and I didn't want someone else to stop who may not have good intentions or for him to get hit by a car or anything. When I saw something very similar to what Carlee reported to have seen, my instinctive reaction was to stop right away, not to make any phone calls. I've tried to think about what I would have done if it was dark, or late at night, and I'm not sure. In the moment, I acted on instinct.
He was very scared, the rain was starting to come down harder, but I managed to signal to him to come over to the car. I told him something like, "You should never get in a car with a stranger, but honey, you need to come get in my car right now."
When he was in the car I tried to get information from him about what was going on and how the heck he ended up on the side of the freeway. I found the "red flags" I mentioned extremely concerning and I wanted to get a sense of what the situation was, i.e. was he in any immediate danger, was he running away from someone who had hurt him, etc. If there was an abuse situation I didn't want to just throw him back into it without understanding. I mentioned calling the police and he was extremely distressed by that and tried to open the door to get out of the car. He eventually agreed to stay in the car if I promised not to call the police.
I told him well, we can't just stay here on the side of the freeway so I drove him to Starbucks down the road and we went through the drive thru and I got him something to eat and drink (he had been "using the empty beer bottle he found on the side of the road to catch rain water" and was very proud of himself, lol) and helped him put on a dry shirt I found in my car while I talked to him and tried to get information from him. (Every time I tried to grab my phone he would get extremely upset and try to leave, so I didn't call anyone but I quickly googled and could not find anything local about a missing child or an amber alert which was baffling to me. He had run away from school but had not been reported missing. Several hours had gone by and the school didn't even notice he was gone. He was 7 years old.)
Most of the rest of the info isn't relevant to Carlee's case so I'll leave it out to keep this on topic.
The things that I think are potentially relevant here — he had not been reported missing. I eventually convinced him to let me drive him to the police station and promised I would stay with him and keep him safe. I drove to the nearest location that Google Maps said was a police station, and the door was locked. I knocked, and an officer came out and I tried to briefly explain what was going on. In the most BAFFLING part of this whole thing, the officer said it wasn't actually a police station but something like an annex, and I should go a few miles away to another police station, and then he just let me take this boy and drive off with him and didn't want to know any information, not even the boy's name!
I took him to the other police station and eventually was able to explain to several officers what was going on and convince them to take me seriously without spooking the boy. I guess what had happened was that the school systems are under the jurisdiction of the Sheriff's office, not the police, and the Sheriff's office didn't think to inform the police when they eventually learned there was a missing child. No one had called to report seeing him on the busy freeway, seeing me pick him up, or seeing him walking alone the 2 miles from school. He said he had hid in the trees and behind trash cans so people couldn't see him.
I stayed there with him for several hours and helped him speak to detectives until his father arrived to claim him, which is a long story. I put a note in his backpack for his mom (who lived in another city, which is where he was trying to walk to via the freeway) with my contact information, and later got a long and very grateful phone call from her. We stayed in touch for a while and I sent Christmas gifts, etc. I'm just so glad I was in the right place at the right time.
The most important takeaway I want to give to anyone reading this -- please please please make sure your child knows basic information about you that they can communicate to rescuers if they are lost. Make sure your child knows your full name even if they're too young to remember your phone number or address. Especially if you have a different last name than your child. This situation could have been resolved much less painfully if the boy had been able to tell me any of that information, all he knew was his mother's first name. Because of this experience, I've drilled it into my 4-year-old and she can now recite my and my husband's full names, and our address, enough for anyone with a smart phone to google and get in contact with us.
