Police have identified the mother of a 2-year-old boy found abandoned at a Mississippi Goodwill donation center with only a note and a change of clothes.
NBC News reports a man connected with the case was arrested by Memphis police on Monday afternoon.
Antoinette Smith claims a man who tried to pimp her out for cash kidnapped her son, Sergio, according to a Facebook Live interview she gave over the phone to a Memphis activist.
Smith said she traveled from Memphis to Nashville with a “male acquaintance,” leaving her son behind in Memphis with a woman whom she believed was the man’s sister.
Smith said the man later revealed that his “sister” was actually his girlfriend.
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have left my baby like that,” Smith said. She claims the man then left her at a Nashville store after she refused his demand to turn tricks for him.
The Southaven Police Department circulated a still image from a surveillance video that shows a disguised man dropping the boy off at the Goodwill center.
Surveillance footage also showed a woman in a red vehicle with the man.
According to an employee at the Goodwill center, the man said the boy’s mother couldn’t care for him any longer. The employee called police when the man left the premises.
The man left a bag with the boy that contained a note and a change of clothing. The note read: “Child abandoned… no phone number for mom.”
The child is in the custody of Child Protective Services until the mother arrives to pick him up.