WAUPUN, WI (WTAQ) – A missing Waupun girl was quickly reunited with her mother Monday morning with the help of social media.
The 2-year-old girl was found by officers alone on the front steps of a home that wasn’t hers in the 200 block of N. Madison St. around 7 a.m. Monday morning.
She was taken to the hospital to be checked out and wasn’t hurt.
The Waupun Police Department says the floodgates opened once they posted a picture of the girl on their Facebook page, asking the online communities help in finding her guardian.
The toddler’s mother was located in less than 40-minutes with the help of already thousands of post shares.
“We did post on social media, and within 37 minutes, we were able to get the mother,” says Waupun Police Department Chief of Police, Scott Louden.
Police don’t believe the girl was missing very long, because she was still warm to the touch once they first spotted her.
At that point, they initially tried to find answers the old-fashioned way.
“We did a canvass of the neighborhood to see in anybody could identify her or knew who her legal guardian was, and we didn’t get any luck doing that,” says Louden.
The girl’s mother was at work at the time when she got wind of the post from the police department.
Officials say using social media in cases like this is becoming increasingly more successful.
“Social media we use quite often at our police department for missing persons or to find out any evidence on any type of crime, and we actually get a good response in doing that, like with this incident, it really helped out,” explains Louden.
A male was watching the girl, according to police, and he was questioned after the girl was reunited with her mother.
“Basically, a babysitter was watching the child, and there was miscommunication, and we’re still investigating that, at this point,” says Louden. “We gotta see if there was any neglect.”
