TUJUNGA : Children Taken From Stray Girl’s Parents

Five children belonging to a Tujunga couple were placed in protective custody Wednesday after police discovered one of the children--a 20-month-old girl--wandering around the street wearing only a diaper, authorities said.

The parents, Matthew and Susan McNally, could face child endangerment charges over the Tuesday evening incident. A motorist flagged down patrol officers in the 10000 block of Tujunga Canyon Boulevard to alert them that a toddler--later identified by her parents as Sarah McNally--was walking alone down the street.

Los Angeles Police Detective Andy Monsue said that officers began knocking on doors, but were unable to find the girl’s home because it is located in a rear lot behind another house in the 10100 block of Tujunga Canyon Boulevard.

Susan McNally, 31, said she thought Sarah was asleep in her crib until she went to get her shortly before 7 a.m. and panicked when she realized her daughter was missing.

“I just thought she had gotten out of her crib and was sleeping somewhere else in the house,” McNally said. “I called 911 and at the same time my mother saw a picture of her on the television news and phoned me . . . I was on the phone with police when she called.”

McNally said she rushed to the Police Department’s Foothill station where she was questioned by officers as to how her daughter got out of the house, where the family had moved just two days ago.

“We’re still baffled as to how she slipped out,” said her husband, Matthew McNally, 35.

But instead of being reunited with their daughter, the McNallys ended up losing custody--at least temporarily--of her and their four other children, including Sarah’s twin sister and her three brothers, ages 3, 6 and 8.

“We felt, based on the assessment for right now, that we had to place the kids into protective custody,” said Schuyler Sprowles, a spokesman for the county’s Department of Children and Family Services. “The fact that it’s an accident doesn’t mean we shouldn’t necessarily take custody.”

Monsue said that Children and Family Services had made contact with the McNally family in the past, but refused to elaborate. He said that a crime report on the incident would be turned over to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, which will decide whether to file charges against the McNallys.

“This is scarier than hell,” Matthew McNally told reporters. He later said authorities had placed his children in the care of their grandmother, and he also denied there had been any past incidents between his family and Children and Family Services or the Police Department.

The McNallys had moved into the house off Tujunga Canyon Boulevard from an apartment just a few block away on Silverton Avenue. Judith Kenward, who described herself as a neighbor and friend of the family, said she was shocked to hear their children had been taken away.

“I’m surprised they took the kids into protective custody because you couldn’t get more protective than they are,” Kenward said. She described Matthew McNally as a workaholic who held three jobs to support his family and his wife as a caring mother.

“I remember one time one of the twins almost got out the door and [Susan] freaked out,” Kenward said.