Utah Toddler Forgotten In Corn Maze Overnight, Parents Get Around To Reporting It Next Day

WEST JORDAN, UT — When a Good Samaritan found a 3-year-old boy left in a Utah corn maze Monday as the popular family attraction was about to close, he was cold, scared and crying, but unhurt authorities said. He had been left behind hours earlier by his parents, who didn’t report the child missing until the following morning, reports said.

Kendall Schmidt, co-owner of the Crazy Corn Maze in West Jordan, Utah, said the staff at the maze used a bullhorn to try to find the parents Monday but got no response. The boy was taken into custody by state child protection workers when no one came forward to claim him

West Jordan Police Sgt. Joe Monson said the mother of the boy showed up at the police station with 10 other children Tuesday morning. It’s unclear if he has been reunited with his family or if criminal charges will be filed. An investigation is continuing.

“He was crying and upset and obviously scared,” Schmidt told The Washington Post in a phone interview Wednesday. “We were trying to calm him down.”

Schmidt said an off-duty police officer working at the maze gave the toddler a sucker, a teddy bear and a blanket. She put a movie, “Finding Dory,” in a player in her cruiser to keep him entertained while she and others tried to find out who he was.

“We couldn’t get him to give us his name,” Schmidt told The Washington Post. “He could say his brother’s name and his cat’s name, but not his own name.”

It’s not unusual for families to become separated in the twists and turns of the corn maze, so workers “weren’t in panic mode right away,” Schmidt told the newspaper.

But as nighttime fell, “we got a little more worried,” Schmidt told KSTU-TV.

“As the night wore on, even at midnight I texted the police officer to see if she heard anything and she hadn't heard anything back yet.”

With nighttime temperatures dipping into the 30s, “it could have been a different story,” Monson told the Huffington Post.

The boy’s family lives in a house with several other families and children, Monson told HuffPo.

“They left with so many and came back one less,” he said.

AP Photo/Seth Perlman