Two-year-old twin boys alone on a Land O’Lakes street. It was close to 9 p.m. Thursday night.
That’s when neighbor Jose Fernandez happened to be driving by and saw them on the sidewalk.
“I asked them are you guys ok, what’s going on? And they just ran to me,” he said.
Fernandez called 911 and a Pasco Sheriff’s deputy discovered the boys had wandered out of their house through the front door.
“You are two? And how old are you,” the deputy is heard asking the children on his body camera video.
While deputies worked to reach the woman who was supposed to be caring for the children, Jose comforted the twins
He knew just what to do, because he has a two-year old son.
“I don’t have games on my phone, but I pulled up Angry Birds and I just let them play and give them high 5’s. Do what I do with my son. And that was the only thing I could think of to make sure everything was ok,” said Fernandez.
It took deputies a while to reach the woman who was in charge of the boys.
We aren’t identifying her relationship to them because the children are neglect victims.
When 29-year-old Melissa Serrano finally came back, investigators said she told them she intentionally left the kids alone while she went to a gym 20 minutes away to work out.
Serrano also told investigators she thought the two year olds were sleeping.
She was still wearing her workout clothes when deputies arrested her.
Fernandez said he’s just glad he found the boys before anything bad happened to them.
“I don’t let my son out of my sight, we go outside, we do things. I get nervous just getting out of my truck leaving him alone even just for a second before I open his door,” he said.
Deputies requested a higher than normal bond for Serrano because they say she “showed absolutely no remorse” for leaving the kids alone.
The Child Protective Investigations unit took the children.
