CRESTVIEW — A Crestview man is charged with leaving a 3-year-old home alone while he drove from Crestview to a friend’s house in Valparaiso Tuesday night.
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office has charged 29-year-old Eduardo Arevalo with child neglect without great bodily harm.
Deputies were called to a home on Chanan Drive in Crestview around 9:30 p.m. after a homeowner who answered his doorbell found a 3-year-old crying at his doorstep.
The toddler said his parents were gone and he did not know his address, last name, or how to get back to his house.
They were able to eventually find the home about a third of a mile away.
Deputies said Arevalo returned from his friend’s house around 10:15 p.m. He told them he had left the child sleeping and didn’t want to wake him. His wife was at work at the time.
Deputies said the distance from Arevalo’s house in Crestview to the home he went to on Trevor Drive in Valparaiso is just over 16 miles, an estimated 21-minute drive away.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview man accused of leaving toddler home alone