A two-year-old Cole County boy was taken into protective custody early Wednesday morning after being found walking alone on a street.
According to sheriff's department reports, the call came in around 1:34 a.m. to go to the 3900 block of Dewberry Drive where a citizen found the child and took him into their home.
Deputies checked the child over and found he had no apparent injuries or signs of abuse.
They then attempted to make contact with at least one resident in every apartment building on Dewberry to locate the parent of the child, but no one seemed to know the boy.
The state children's division was called in and eventually the child was turned over to them.
At 3:55 a.m. a woman called the 911 center claiming to be the legal guardian of the boy and that he was missing.
Authorities went to the woman's address, which was an apartment in the 3900 block of Dewberry, and the woman told them she had left the boy in the care of her friend's 13-year-old son while she and that boy's mother went shopping.
That was around 10 p.m. Tuesday and the two women didn't get back until 3:55 a.m. Wednesday.
The boy who was watching the two-year-old said he fell asleep around 11 p.m. and did not hear the infant leave the apartment nor did hear deputies knocking on apartment doors trying to identify the child.
Deputies were told the infant could put on his jacket by himself and he had a tendency to stand on objects in order to open doors.
The child will stay in the custody of the children's division pending the outcome of their investigation.