2-year-old boy missing in southwest Detroit found safe

DETROIT (FOX 2) - A two-year-old boy is found safe after wandering away while his father was sleeping. 

The father could be facing criminal charges.

We've learned more about how the boy may have gotten into the area of Yale and Melville. Investigators say a fence with a hole is where the child might have slipped through.

"I was sleeping, my dogs start barking and my husband tell me somebody is yelling in the street." Neighbor Irma Orozco said.

The search for Aries Washington took hours. He’s only two and was found in his winter coat burrowed under brush to stay warm.

“It’s cold weather still, a little boy should not be out at midnight, of course that’s just good parenting to have your kid home in bed so there is some problem on the adult here. So I’m angered by that but more than happy we found him and it’s a good resolution,” DPD Commander Darin Szilagy said.

Dad told the cops around midnight Friday near Yale and Melville he and the boy were walking to McDonalds when it started raining. He says they took cover using the awning of an abandoned home. Dad woke up around 5 a.m. and his son was gone. 

“K9 officer going up and down the street, the K9 was sniffing every porch, every yard but all these cars over there it had to be something bad,” neighbor Roy Gonzalez said.

All along, Aries was only yards from where his dad says they’d been sleeping.

“These are bad times we’re living in we see things now there’s a saying you think you’ve seen bad then you see worse, that’s the kind of world we live in,” Gonzalez said.

Investigators say dad said he was living downriver but they also say his story kept changing about why he was even in the area. 

He was detained and is being investigated for child abuse, child protective services are also involved. One police source says charges are likely.