A Florida woman and her boyfriend were arrested after they allegedly abandoned a 6-year-old girl on the side of a Deltona road Friday afternoon.
Volusia County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a home at around 4:30 p.m. after a woman found an abandoned girl sitting in her carport.
The girl told the woman she was “hot, thirsty, and hungry” and provided the name “Quana.”
“Mommy and daddy needed to go charge their cell phones,” the child told deputies.
Police found the girl’s mother, 27-year-old Aquania Aleshia Estes, and her boyfriend, Pitrez Floyd, 29, in nearby woods.
“You leave your kid on the side of the f---in’ road?” a deputy could be heard telling the couple.
Estes told detectives she was “homeless” and “lived in the forest” in two tents, adding that the child left without telling her.
“She got out from where she was staying at. I was trying to go get water and food. We have been going through a rough time,” Estes said.
Estes and Floyd were charged with desertion of a child and abandonment of an animal. The girl was placed into the custody of her grandparents.
