A baby who had been missing since Monday (April 16) was found in Fenton, along with her father, Dalton Gardner, who has been exonerated of any wrongdoing and had the right to take the baby with him when he left their Pevely home, Pevely Police reported.
“I interviewed the father. He lives there (at the Pevely home with the baby and her mother). He had access to the car (he left in). He is the father. His name is on the birth certificate. He has the right to take the child wherever he wants,” Detective Sgt. Larry Miller said. ”
Gardner, 29, also had been communicating with the mother by phone over the past 24 hours while the baby supposedly was missing, Miller said.
“She (the mother) was texting with him back and forth this morning,” Miller said.
However, the woman did not tell police that she had been communicating with Gardner, Miller said.
The mother reported the baby missing at 9:11 p.m. Monday. She told police that Gardner briefly woke her about 7:30 a.m. Monday morning and she thought he told her he was going to the gas station, and then she went back to sleep. She woke at about 8 p.m. that evening and realized the baby was gone, authorities said.
The mother told police she called Gardner’s sister, who said Gardner had been at her Hillsboro home but left about 8 p.m. with the baby, police reported.
Miller said police were able to find Gardner and the baby this afternoon (April 17) after again talking with the mother.
“An FBI agent and an officer were talking to the mother when she mentioned that he had a friend in Fenton. They (officers) went there, and bam, there they were,” Miller said.
Officers arrived at the address at 12:30 p.m. and the man and the baby were taken to the Pevely Police Department where the baby was found to be unharmed and the man was cleared of any wrongdoing, Miller said.
Miller said the incident, however, is still under investigation.
The Pevely Police Department assigned six officers to work on the case and called in the FBI to assist, Miller said.