Had Feared Discipline : Boy, 8, Safe After Night Out in Park

An 8-year-old Irvine boy missing since Monday afternoon was found unharmed Tuesday and reunited with his parents after telling police that he had not gone home because he feared discipline for taking a piece of cake.

Donald Charles Jr. spent the night in near-freezing temperatures, sleeping in playground equipment, and was found about a mile from his house about 7:15 a.m. by a jogger, who recognized the boy from publicized descriptions. The jogger took him home, called police and fed him breakfast while waiting for authorities to arrive, Lt. Sam Allevato said.

Paramedics determined that Donald was in fine condition, and he was reunited with his parents at the police station later in the morning, Allevato said. Donald had last been seen Monday afternoon leaving Greentree Elementary School, where his mother is employed, police said.

“The reason he didn’t go home was he was fearing discipline. He had taken some cake earlier in the day and his mother indicated she had wanted to talk to him about it when he got home,” Allevato said. “So he got scared.”

A “very ecstatic” Betty Charles said Tuesday that she was relieved her only child was found safe and sound. “Now I can at least start to breathe again,” she said.

Throughout the long, sleepless night, Charles said, she had “felt he was somewhere nearby.”

The search for the boy involved 27 officers until 3 a.m. Tuesday, Allevato said.

But the task was accomplished by Neil Snyder, 43, a computer printer salesman from Irvine, who was out on his thrice-weekly jog when he spotted a child fitting the description he had heard over the radio.

“I asked him if he was Don, and he said he was,” Snyder said. The boy told Snyder that he was going home, “but he was heading in the wrong direction,” so Snyder took him back to his own house to call police.

Donald was “quite cold” and shivering, so Snyder made him hot chocolate and toast. The boy told him he had had dinner the previous night but did not offer much information, Snyder said.

“He wasn’t scared. He was very calm and quiet and very polite,” Snyder said. When Snyder asked Donald why he had not gone home Monday, the boy “shrugged his shoulders.”

Snyder said he has a heightened awareness of lost and abducted children because he attends church with Mike and Patty Bradbury, whose daughter, Laura, was abducted at age 3 more than a year ago from Joshua Tree National Monument.

In addition, Snyder said he is especially concerned about the issue because he has four children and a foster child. He said he was “surprised and gratified” that he could help locate a lost child before any harm came to him.

Police are confident that Donald met with no foul play during his night away from home.

“Case is closed. Happy ending,” said Allevato.