The State : Boy, 6, Gives Parents the Slip

A Riverside couple inadvertently left their 6-year-old son at a Santa Barbara gas station and failed to notice that he was not in the car until they arrived home 150 miles away, authorities said. Sean McCarty was found by other holiday travelers who called authorities. The boy’s grandmother picked him up at the police station, investigators said. The boy’s mother told police that Sean had been very quiet during the first part of the trip home and must have slipped out of the car at the gas station without the parents noticing. The youngster knew enough of his address so that police could find his home in Riverside, where sheriff’s deputies were waiting when the boy’s parents arrived.