Orange County Sheriff’s deputies arrested a 14-year-old boy on Thursday outside a store on West Colonial Drive, after he attempted to abduct a three-year-old child.
According to OCSO:
Detectives arrested Edwin McFarlane, 14, after he approached a young child and ushered her out of the Burlington Coat Factory on 7545 West Colonial Drive. According to investigators, McFarlane took the 3-year-old’s hand and walked out into the parking lot area. The child’s mother recognized that her daughter was missing and found McFarlane outside.
McFarlane has been charged with false imprisonment, a second degree felony. He has been charged as an adult and is being held in a Juvenile Detention Center.
Meanwhile, early on Friday morning, McFarlane’s family have said that he is being wrongly accused and it is all a misunderstanding, reports Click Orlando. They say that McFarlane was trying to help the toddler find her mother, and the only think that he did wrong was not take the child to a security guard after he found her.
Orange County Sheriff’s detectives insist that after watching the store video, there was sufficient cause to charge McFarlane. They say that McFarlane knew what he was doing when he walked the child out of the store.
