(Memphis) “Everybody is lying. Everybody that don’t know what happened is lying,” Ruth Brown said.
She’s a grandmother on the defensive.
“I am gonna tell the truth. I am gonna stand up for my rights, ’cause I believe in God. I don’t believe in all this bull—-,” she said.
It was her 4-year-old grandson who was the real victim in all of this.
He and his grandmother were driving home from the store, and the little boy fell asleep in the back seat.
Brown says her daughter’s boyfriend was outside the house as she unloaded groceries Friday evening.
She went inside to get someone to come and get the sleeping 4-year-old since he was too heavy for her to carry.
“The car was right here, all the way up. So what is the problem? He wasn’t in any endangerment. Her boyfriend was standing right there,” said Brown.
Brown says it wasn’t more than five minutes, but that was enough time for her car, with Kevin inside, to vanish.
“I just thought someone had come up here and stole it, straight wired it, because I had the key,” said Brown.
Turns out the car had been repossessed, and the repo man never knew about the sleeping child in the backseat.
“When they have a repo, they go in, they have the keys, they get the car and drive off. That’s all there is, ” Sam Young, manager of Cooper and Son Auto Sales, said.
“The man at the car lot is dirty and low down for doing that. You miss one day and they want to come behind your back and not let you know they are out here,” Brown said.
Kevin was safe, but now Brown says she is being made the villain.
“This was a 4-year-old child and anybody could have stolen the car. So everybody want to blame me right? Everybody wants to blame me. We are right here at the door ma’am. No harm can come to him because I came right back out to get him,” said Brown.
As of now, authorities don’t seem to think Brown did anything wrong.
Police have not said that she will face any charges and officials at the Department of Children Services say they are not investigating and have not been contacted about the incident.
If anything, this close call has become a lesson to a grandmother and everyone else that leaving a child unattended in a car for even a minute can be very dangerous.