State Department of Natural Resources Police were seeking a 31-year-old Westminster, Carroll County, man who allegedly abandoned his infant daughter in an isolated area of the Patapsco State Park yesterday.
The child, Sabrina Lynn Santana, 9 months, of the 1100 block of Deer Park Road, was not injured and has been reunited with her mother after being examined at Carroll County General Hospital.
According to Bob Graham, a DNR spokesman, the incident appeared to be the result of a domestic situation between the man, Esteban Santana Jr., and his wife, Katherine Lynn, 31, also of the Deer Park Road address.
Mr. Graham said a couple was in the Theodore R. McKeldin section of the sprawling state park around 1 p.m. when they heard the sounds of a baby crying coming from a red Ford pickup truck parked on Feezer Road, one of many roads in the park that covers thousands of acres in Baltimore and Howard counties.
The baby, Mr. Graham said, was strapped in a childs' car seat and was wearing a winter jumpsuit.
The truck's hood was warm, indicating the vehicle hadn't been parked on the road very long and the ignition keys had been removed and the doors were unlocked, said Mr. Graham.
The couple removed the child from the truck and notified park rangers, who later took the child to the hospital.
In the meantime, at least 30 police officers from DNR, Howard and Baltimore counties, state police and three helicopters searched several square miles of the heavily wooded park for any sign of the owner of the truck, identified as Mr. Santana, in the belief he may have gotten lost while hiking or was fishing along the Patapsco River or any of several streams that criss-cross the park, whose main entrance is off Marriottsville Road.
While the search continued, police went to the man's home but could not locate him.
Messages were left on his answering machine to call the police.
During the search, police notified the man's wife at her job and drove her to the hospital, where she took custody of the baby.
The woman told police her husband was to have stopped by her job in Sykesville around 2 p.m. with the baby and taken both of them home but that he failed to show up.
Mr. Graham said a 26-year-old male tenant at the Santana house may have assisted the husband in leaving the park and authorities were also looking for him.