Westchester Grandmother Charged After Unattended Toddler Wanders Along Busy Road

OSSINING, N.Y. (CBS 2) -- A Westchester grandmother is facing charges for allegedly leaving small children home alone Wednesday morning.

One of those children wandered out of the house along a busy road before being found by a good Samaritan.

Police said it was a dangerous and troubling situation in the neighborhood not far from Ossining High School. Around 8:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, someone noticed the 2-year-old boy walking down the sidewalk by himself and called police.

Authorities investigated and went to the little boy's home on Ellis Place and found more kids.

"We go inside, do a little investigation, see if we can find somebody. That's when we located two more children sleeping in the bedroom unattended," Officer Anthony Stovall told CBS 2's Tony Aiello.

The grandmother of the children, 65-year-old Maria Villa, is now being charged with three misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

In Spanish, Villa told Aiello she left the kids for a short while to run to the store, thinking her daughter was home, but she was not.

Police said leaving the children home without making sure they were supervised could have led to tragedy.

"The child was [near a] busy thoroughfare, it's near the Ossining High School. School buses, children going to school, lot of traffic there, could have been a disaster, Lt. William Sullivan said.

Child Protective Services are now monitoring the health of the three children.

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