SLIDELL – A man selling crack out of a Slidell hotel room has been arrested after police found his 2-year-old child wandering pantsless and barefoot in the cold along a busy highway.
A Good Samaritan spotted the child wandering in the road in front of the Days Inn on Tyler Drive around 8 p.m. on November 27, according to the Slidell Police Department.
Temperatures in the area were in the upper 30s at the time the child was found.
The concerned citizen brought the child to the lobby and called police, who spent 45 minutes searching for the child’s parents.
Police eventually located 42-year-old Nathaniel Burnette passed out in a room at the motel.
Burnette told police he didn’t notice that the child was missing because he was asleep.
Burnette admitted to selling crack cocaine from the room, and officers also found marijuana and drug paraphernalia in the room.
He has been arrested for drug possession, child desertion, and cruelty to juveniles.
The child was released into the custody of a family member.