Police located a truck belonging to missing Georgia mom Leila Cavett, 20, in Hollywood, Florida on Wednesday evening.
Pictures of the vehicle Leila Cavett was last seen driving: pic.twitter.com/99r2J4qOHj
— Miramar Police (@MiramarPD) July 27, 2020
Cavett, who has been missing since July 17, was not in the truck, according to Hollywood police who took over the missing person case from Miramar police.
She was reported missing by her family after her 2-year-old son, Kamdyn Cavett Arnold, was found wandering alone inside an apartment complex in Miramar, Fl. on Sunday morning. He was wearing only a soiled diaper and a t-shirt.
A neighbor, Lori Rodriguez, took the boy in and changed his diaper before calling 911.
Police collected surveillance video from a Walmart store in Hollywood, not far from where Kamdyn was found. A witness spotted Cavett and Kamdyn with a man at the Walmart on Sunday.
“Miramar Police received information that Leila Cavett had recently traveled to Florida from Alabama, and that her last known location was possibly in the area of Hollywood Boulevard and US 441. Additionally, Miramar Police located Ms. Cavett’s vehicle in Hollywood’s jurisdiction,” Hollywood police said in a statement.
A man who says he is Kamdyn’s father, Daniel Lee West, told the Miami Herald he wants to take custody of his son. He has been in contact with the Florida Apartment of Children and Family Services.
“CPS [the Florida Department of Children and Families] is supposed to tell me what to do. I am coming there as soon as they do,” West told the Herald.
CPS requested a DNA test from West to establish paternity. He said he was never in a relationship with Cavett, who was dating another man, Levi Arnold, at the time.
“We were never together; it was just a hookup. Our relationship was about Kamdyn only,” said West, who is currently engaged to another woman.
Arnold’s name is on the birth certificate, but he denied being Kamdyn’s father. West said he gave Cavett money for Kamdyn, and he was supposed to see his son on Friday, July 24, but Cavett never answered her phone.
Kamdyn was reunited with his two aunts who traveled from Alabama to Miramar police headquarters on Wednesday, but he will remain in the care of a foster parent until a court hearing in August.
Cavett’s grandmother is prepared for the worst because Cavett would never abandon her son.
“I think she been snatched up off the streets. She would have never left her baby, never,” said Carol Ferdinand, Cavett’s grandmother, from Nashville, Tennessee. “She’s my granddaughter, I know her, she would never have left Kamdyn; that’s not her character.”
