NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Middlesex County authorities charged a man yesterday with kidnapping in the case of a 20-month-old child found abandoned at a gas station in Delaware over the weekend.
Dwayne Jackson, of Edison, was being held in lieu of $750,000 bail. Jackson also faces a separate reckless-endangerment charge in Delaware.
The child was found Sunday afternoon in the bathroom of a Shell service station in Newark by a stranger who heard her crying. After a photograph of the toddler was publicized, she was identified as Jackson’s daughter.
The child had been living with her mother, who has not been identified, in North Brunswick, the prosecutor’s office said. The child was placed in the custody of Delaware’s Division of Family Services and was reported to be in good health.
The prosecutor’s office also is investigating the death of a young woman whose burning body was found in a park in Monsey, N.Y., about 25 miles northwest of New York City. Jim O’Neill, a prosecutor’s office spokesman, did not say whether the woman was believed to be the baby’s mother.
The woman’s body was found on fire early Monday.
Police said the woman was black or Hispanic and was about 5 feet 2 and weighed about 120 pounds. She had a tattoo on her back that read “Patricia.”
