A couple is facing charges after allegedly abandoning a child on the side of a Florida highway with a bag of guns and cash — before telling him to “take care of the house.”
Bradley Leon Guerrero Santos, 36, and Rosanella Mendiola Borja, 35, reportedly kicked the boy out of their car while driving on I-75 near North Port, a city 35 miles south of Sarasota, just before 6 p.m. October 3, WWSB reported.
Police received a call about a boy walking along the highway, and he told them he had been in the car with the couple and a sibling. Authorities did not say what the relationship is between the child, Guerrero Santos and Mendiola Borja.
The boy, whose age has not been shared by authorities, said that when he got home from school that day, the couple told him they were taking a trip “either to Guam or Idaho,” according to the affidavit.
He then went out to walk the dog, only to return to find the pair frantically throwing clothes into duffel bags and loading the luggage into their car.
When their car went to the interstate, the boy told the couple he did not want to go on the trip. They then pulled over to the side of the road and gave him two bags containing a .40 caliber handgun, a 9mm handgun and some cash, the report noted.
The child told police the couple told him to “take care of the house” before driving off, Fox 35 Orlando reported.
Police tried to reach the couple, but calls to their cellphones were either denied or hung up. Officers then took the boy home and found the garage door and front door of the home open.
After cops entered to investigate, they discovered the home was “cluttered in disarray, with firearms lying out in the open,” the affidavit said.
The boy had told authorities the couple was acting erratically. He said Guerrero Santos was religious and called him the “chosen one,” often testing him by giving him difficult tasks, such as throwing him out onto the street.
Police tracked the couple’s cellphones to an address in Wauchula, about 60 miles north of North Port, and found them as well as the second child. Local police detained the couple about four hours after the boy was kicked out of the car.
Guerrero Santos was charged with child neglect without great harm and permitting a minor to possess a firearm. Mengiola Borja was charged with child neglect without great harm.
Guerrero Santos is set to be arraigned October 31 and is being held on $250,000 bond. Meanwhile, Borja will be arraigned October 31 and is being held on $500,000 bond, according to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office.
