This story makes me wonder why.

[TexasStooge]

Police seek mother of abandoned boy

Child is in foster care; investigation in Arlington turns up little

By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News

ARLINGTON, Texas - He said his name was Teddy and he was 3 years old.

That's just about all the curly-headed boy could tell the east Arlington apartment residents who took him in for a month after his mother disappeared.

At some point in mid-August, the boy's mother left him at the Manhattan Park Apartments in the 2200 block of New York Avenue. No one called police.

"Many of them were under the impression that the mother would return," said Christy Gilfour, an Arlington police spokeswoman.

For the next four weeks or so, neighbor after neighbor took the boy in, feeding and dressing him.

Finally, on Sept. 14, someone called police to report that Teddy had been abandoned.

"It's unusual for some neighbors to do so much when they don't even know the family very well," said Marissa Gonzales, a spokeswoman for Child Protective Services, which on Tuesday asked for the public's help. "We're grateful that they cared for him that long, but it would be helpful if we had better identifying information."

Arlington police went to the complex and questioned the people who had cared for Teddy. Some people said they know his mother, who they said goes by "Julie" or "Julie Ann." Police alerted CPS, which placed the child with foster parents.

Belinda Smith said Teddy's mother left the boy with a friend while she went to a store a few months ago.

"She said she was going shopping, but she never came back," Ms. Smith said.

But when the friend went out of town, the boy needed a place to stay. Ms. Smith didn't hesitate to take him in.

She said she bought him food and gave him clothes, doing her best to provide everything he needed. But Teddy needed his mother.

"He was always upset about his mother and would cry himself to sleep," Ms. Smith said.

Later, Teddy stayed with another neighbor and her daughter.

He eventually moved back in with Ms. Smith and might have been cared for by other neighbors as well.

Police say Teddy's mother is in her early 40s and of multiracial ethnicity.

Anyone with information about the woman or the child may call 1-800-252-5400.

Staff writer Holly Yan contributed to this report.

[GalvestonDuck]

They waited FOUR WEEKS before reporting him abandoned?? What the heck? Meanwhile, the mom could be laying dead in a ditch somewhere, the victim of some nutjob lunatic.

[Josephine96]

Now this story makes me wonder.. Why would they wait so long to call and report he was abandoned..

Perhaps there sadly was some sort of cover up

[TexasStooge]

I just got some more info on this one:

ARLINGTON, Texas (KDFW Fox 4) -- The mother who abandoned her little boy has been found.

Arlington police are in the process of questioning her. They want to know why she left her boy at an apartment complex. She was last seen two months ago.

CPS is also planning to talk to her. The child is now in foster care.

[GalvestonDuck]

Well, good. Glad to know she wasn't dead.

[Wnghs2007]

Yeah why would they wait that long? It does not make any sense. You should report almost instantly that you abandoned him.

[TexasStooge]

That mother has definitely got some issues.

Kin: Mother has left kids before

Brother not surprised woman is accused of abandoning son

By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News

ARLINGTON, Texas - For more than two decades, Juline Bullard has led a life of a cocaine addict, leaving a trail of a dozen children to be raised by family members, her brother said.

On Wednesday, her journey took her to the Arlington city jail.

Authorities identified Ms. Bullard, 44, as the mother of Teddy, the 3-year-old boy who spent more than a month with residents of a crime-ridden east Arlington apartment complex after she left him with an acquaintance.

Ms. Bullard's brother, who lives in Arlington, said he wasn't surprised when he saw his nephew's picture – released by Child Protective Services this week after the agency spent a month looking for his relatives – flash across his television.

"I think she was so whacked out on drugs, she didn't know what she was doing," said her brother, who asked not to be identified because he is embarrassed about his sister's plight.

"She's had 12 children by 10 different men," he said. "She's given up all her other children to her family, so this didn't surprise me. This is the first time she's left a child with a stranger."

Just after midnight Wednesday, someone tipped Arlington police to Ms. Bullard's whereabouts, and they took her into custody for failure to identify herself and for three outstanding traffic warrants out of Pantego.

Arlington police spent Wednesday sifting through conflicting accounts of how and when Ms. Bullard left her son and how he ended up being passed from one household to another before ending up at the Manhattan Park Apartments.

Ms. Bullard told detectives that in July, she left her son with a man who agreed to watch him for 90 days while she looked for a job and housing, police spokeswoman Christy Gilfour said.

That man, an acquaintance of Ms. Bullard's, told police that he never agreed to take care of the boy for an extended period, Ms. Gilfour said. He said that Ms. Bullard dropped off the boy at his girlfriend's unit at the Springcrest apartments while he was away. The next day, he saw Ms. Bullard at the nearby Manhattan Park Apartments and asked her to get the boy, but she never did.

"The man said he liked the boy but could not care for him," Ms. Gilfour said.

Ms. Bullard, who could not reached for comment, is being held in lieu of $7,300 bail at the Arlington city jail on suspicion of abandoning a child, as well as the other unrelated charges. Child abandonment is a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in jail and a $10,000 fine, police said.

Teddy passed into the care of several people at the Manhattan Park Apartments. Belinda Smith, a Manhattan Park resident who took care of him for a time, said she knew his mother only vaguely.

She said Teddy liked computer games. She would also read to him but could never console him when he began to think of his mother. "There was nothing I could do to satisfy him [about his mother]."

The day police were called, Sept. 14,

CPS took custody of the boy, who is in foster care. A hearing in the coming weeks will determine whether he will live with relatives or be placed for adoption.

"I want people to know that Teddy has family," his uncle said. "We're going to do all it takes for him to get back with his family. We want him to live a normal life. Unfortunately his mother might not be a part of it because of the drug use and irresponsibility."

He said he hopes his sister can get the help she needs.

"I tried to help her a couple of years ago. She wouldn't let me," he said, adding that he had not seen her in about eight months. "There's not a whole lot good to say about her, other than she's my sister, and I love her, and I hope that she gets help so she can rejoin this family."

He said that she was one of five children growing up in Fort Worth.

"She was raised in a normal home, but she chose to fool around with drugs. Once those drugs got hold of her, there was no stopping her."

She bounced from apartments to motels to houses – wherever the drugs and failed relationships would take her, he said. At some point, she moved to California, where another brothers lives. He ended up raising most of her children, whom she systematically abandoned, her brother said. Three of her children died over the years. The brother would not elaborate on the circumstances.

Eventually Ms. Bullard moved to Oregon, where she seemed to get her act together, her brother said. But four years ago she returned to Texas, he said.

"I helped because she said she was in an abusive relationship. She wasn't on drugs then, but after living with me for two months, she went off on her own. That's when all her troubles repeated themselves."

Marissa Gonzales, a CPS spokeswoman, said that it is common for drugs to ravage a family.

"We do see cases were families are involved in drug use and that puts the kids at risk," she said. "What is good about this case is that the boy is happy and healthy. It's traumatic to be away from his mother, but for now he's safe and sound."

Staff writer Holly Yan contributed to this report.