Florida Finds One of Its Missing Kids

A 2-year-old boy missing from the care of Florida’s troubled Department of Children & Families’ care for more than a year has been found and returned to state custody.

Police found Keontae Rattray in good condition on Thursday in a Fort Lauderdale apartment with his 19-year-old mother, Tracy Rattray. A judge had ordered the child welfare agency to take the baby into custody in October 2001. DCF spokeswoman Leslie Mann said she did not know the grounds for the ruling. The DCF came under fire last year over the case of 5-year-old Rilya Wilson, who had been missing for 15 months before department officials realized that she was gone. She is still unaccounted for, and officials said in December that 87 other children who were supposed to be in the agency’s care are also are missing.

A caseworker saw Keontae and his mother last May and described the child as “healthy and active,” according to DCF records. But the worker did not take the baby into custody, and his mother failed to appear at an August court hearing. Rattray was charged with interference with custody and released on $1,000 bail. Keontae was returned to DCF custody.

Elsewhere in Florida, the DCF said it had received no complaints about a woman who was accused of leaving her 18-month-old son in a dark closet while she was at work. Natasha Woollams, 22, of St. Petersburg was arrested Thursday and charged with aggravated child abuse and two counts of child neglect. She was held in lieu of $35,000 bail.

Woollams told investigators that she put the child in the closet so he wouldn’t hurt himself while she was gone.