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Letter to the editor

Missing Maryland child found with grandmom

By JADE JACKSON LLOYD
Published July 4, 2004

ST. PETERSBURG - A Delaware woman was arrested Friday afternoon at a local home in connection with the abduction of her 4-year-old grandson.

Pinellas County sheriff's officials said they received a call from the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland around 3 p.m., alerting them that a missing child might be found at 2501 48th Ave. N.

An anonymous Florida caller had tipped off Maryland officers earlier in the day about "suspicious behavior regarding the child," said Montgomery County police Officer Derek Baliles on Saturday. The person had accessed the Web site of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and saw the boy's picture, Baliles said.

Sheriff's officials watched the St. Petersburg house for several hours, Pinellas County sheriff's spokeswoman Marianne Pasha said Saturday.

Cynthia Sargent, 45, of Laurel, Del., her husband, Gary Sargent, and her grandson, Matthew Anthony Burns, were in the house, which belonged to friends, sheriff's officials said.

Maryland officials have charged Cynthia Sargent with abducting a child and taking him out of state for more than 30 days and detaining a child out of state for more than 30 days, both felonies. She is being held in Pinellas County Jail without bail, awaiting extradition. Her husband, who is not the child's biological grandfather, has not been charged.

According to Maryland police, Sargent and her son, Cory Wharton, 28, picked up the child from his mother's home in Gaithersburg, Md., on Jan. 30 for a court-authorized visit, but when the child's mother went to look for them the next day, she found the grandmother's house vacant and the family gone.

The child's father was arrested on Feb. 9 on an assault warrant in Delaware, and the child's mother committed suicide the same month, Maryland police said.

For now, the Pinellas Sheriff's Child Protection Team has custody of the child. With three of his closest family ties severed, it is unknown where he will live, Baliles said.

"When the child returns here, he'll be placed in the care of the Department of Social Services," he said. The agency will see "if there is another family member or the child will be placed in foster care."

[Last modified July 4, 2004, 01:00:39]