The mother a 3-year-old boy has been arrested after the child wandered from his Foxbow Farm home for the second time in one week.
Jessica Leann Ekern, 33, was charged by Effingham County deputies on Friday with cruelty to children in the second degree.
The missing child was the subject of a large search that included searches by air and lasted about four hours on Nov. 12.
The child was eventually found on Nov. 12 in a wooded area near his Bluff Drive home near Eden.
The woman was arrested on Friday when the child wandered off again, Effingham County Sheriff’s Office spokesman David Ehsanipoor said.
“A bystander reported finding a child in the road in the Foxbow Farm area, about 9:15 a.m.,” Ehsanipoor said.
Deputies took custody of the child and realized it was the same toddler that been missing earlier in the week.
The Division of Family and Children Services was then called and took custody of the boy.
Ehsanipoor said after about two hours, and with no missing child reports from Ekern, deputies went to the Bluff Drive home.
“We informed her we had her child and she was arrested,” Ehsanipoor said. “There’s obviously a pattern here. It’s not just the child wandering off. It’s also that she hadn’t even noticed he was gone.”
Ekern is currently being held in the Effingham County Jail.
Ehsanipoor said more charges related to the Nov. 12 incident may be filed.