Parents Allegedly Stash Kid in Duffle Bag

A couple could face child endangerment charges after a dispute over company policies winds up with two parents in custody.

Upper Macungie Township (Lehigh County) police were called out to Billig Trucking on Oakview Drive in Allentown, Pa. around 9:40 a.m. Tuesday.

Upper Macungie Police Chief Edgardo Colon said a preliminary investigation showed that the incident began as a dispute between employees at the trucking depot after they received an anonymous tip that a trucker hailing from either Tennessee or Virginia had his wife and allegedly child with him in the Werner Enterprises cab.

It’s against company policy to have a child in the cab, Colon said.

After a brief argument with employees at the depot the unidentified driver and his wife left the tractor-trailer cab with a large black duffel bag and walked into a nearby building.

There were no signs of a child at the point, according to Colon.

Employees asked about what was in the bag and that was when the man allegedly became unruly and the woman left, witnesses told police.

“They were asked about it and while doing so the female left the facility and walked down the roadway with a black duffel bag,” Colon said.

That’s when employees called police.

In the meantime the man followed the woman but wasn’t able to keep up, according to witnesses.

Police questioned the man but he acted “evasive,” said Colon.

The woman and the bag had disappeared into some nearby woods.

“Our main interest was to make sure that if there was child present that we made sure that that child was safe,” Colon said.

Local police called in state police, surrounding departments and K-9 officers.

“We were relatively convinced there was a child in the mix,” Colon said.

A short time after the search began the woman and a 2-year-old child emerged from brush about 50 feet from the roadway, Colon said.

Both seemed to be healthy and safe but the child was taken to the hospital as a precaution.

Lehigh County Children & Youth Services were called in to investigate. The police investigation also continued including looking into claims that the child was in the bag.

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