Arrest made in DE abandoned child case

The Middlesex County, New Jersey prosecutor’s office has made an arrest in connection to the case of a toddler abandoned at a Newark, Delaware gas station over the weekend

The Middlesex County, New Jersey prosecutor’s office has made an arrest in connection to the case of a toddler abandoned at a Newark, Delaware gas station over the weekend.

25 year old Dwayne Jackson of  Edison, New Jersey has been charged with kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child, accused of leaving the 20 month old toddler in the men’s bathroom of a Shell station in Newark, Delaware.

James O’Neill, spokesman for the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office, says media attention helped identify the child  as Jackson’s daughter.

“The Newark police put out the photo and there were responses.” said O’Neill, “From that,  the child was identified and then Newark police contacted us.”

Jackson is being held at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick, N.J. on $750,000 bail.

Newark police have also charged Jackson with reckless endangering.

The identity of the child and her mother are not being released while the investigation continues.

Police in suburban New York have apparently linked the toddler to the death of a woman found in a park in Ramapo, NY.  The Journal News in New York’s Lower Hudson Valley reports that the unidentified woman’s body was found in the park after it had been set on fire Monday morning.  Police don’t say how the woman is linked to the abandoned girl.

O’Neill says the prosecutor’s office has an investigation underway in that New York incident, but would not confirm the two cases are linked.