Melanie Parada: Missing Mom was High on Crack, Say Police
FT. LAUDERDALE (CBS) Police say the Fort Lauderdale woman who was reported missing Sunday was found high on crack cocaine and arrested for leaving her child alone for days.
Melanie Parada contacted her family on Tuesday after seeing herself on the news and was arrested on charges of child neglect on Wednesday.
She told police she called a drug-dealer on March 11 to come to her residence and bring her crack cocaine.
According to police, at about midnight that night Parada intentionally left while her 8-year-old daughter Angelina was sleeping to go buy more crack. Parada allegedly left her daughter at home alone knowing the front door had problems with the lock, problems that had apparently led Parada's family to believe she had been abducted.
After disappearing for five days, Parada was arrested and brought to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. She told officials that after realizing what she had done, she assumed the child would "be fine" and figured the girl's father would be contacted.
The 8-year-old girl is now in Washington D.C. with her grandmother.
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